Established | 1974 |
---|---|
Location | University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada |
Coordinates | 52°07′50″N106°37′57″W / 52.13053°N 106.63253°W |
Type | Archaeology museum |
Director | Tracene Harvey |
Website | www |
The Museum of Antiquities is an archaeological museum at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. It opened in 1974 to provide an opportunity to study ancient works. The Museum currently features a variety of Greek and Roman sculpture, and contains a collection of Near Eastern, Egyptian, Byzantine, Islamic and Medieval art. It is one of only a handful of museums of its kind in Canada.
The project which became the “Museum of Antiquities” began in 1974. It was initiated by ancient history historian Michael Swan and art historian Nicholas Gyenes, both professors of the University of Saskatchewan. The collection began with a small group of replicas purchased from the Louvre, but grew to include replicas from other museums and workshops, as well as original artifacts. The collection grew through the generosity of the University and private benefactors until, in 1981, new facilities in the Murray Library were acquired, the collection was officially opened as the “Museum of Antiquities”, and Catherine Gunderson became the first curator and director of the museum. In 2005, the ever-expanding Museum moved to a larger space in the newly renovated College Building now known as the Peter MacKinnon Building. Tracene Harvey became director in 2009. [1]
The long-term aim of the Museum is to offer a reliable and critical account of the artistic accomplishments of major Western civilizations and epochs from approximately 3000 BC to 1500 CE. The first step in this endeavor was the presentation of a dependable picture of ancient Greco-Roman sculptural art, as it has heavily influenced much later Western art. The present collection focuses on items from the Middle Helladic (c. 1500 BCE) to the Late Antique (c. 500 CE) period and now has expanded to include pieces from the ancient Near East and ancient Egypt.
The Museum's pieces mainly consist of plaster cast replicas, making the collection one of a few cast collections in Canada, and the only one in Saskatchewan. The replicas in the Museum are, in general, not crafted from the same material as the original. Most are casts of plaster or resin, not marble or bronze, for reasons of expense and weight. The replicas by large workshops—such as those at the Louvre, Paris, the British Museum, London, and the Gipsformerei der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin—are created from moulds taken directly from the original pieces. They therefore replicate exactly any damage borne by the original. After the plaster cast is unmoulded, it is painted and given a surface finish which matches the original. The collection has replicas of several famous pieces, such as the Rosetta Stone and the Venus de Milo. [2]
The collection features original sculpture such as the 17th century portrait of Hannibal. Other original pieces include a storage amphora, a false door and a substantial collection of ancient glass.
The Hanson Collection: Early Islamic Artifacts (2013)
Masks as Mirrors: Reflections on Therapeutic Uses of Masks in Ancient Greek and Modern Times (2013)
Euphonia: Music for the Masses in the Middle Ages (2013)
The Minden Collection: Ancient Glass and Artifacts (2012)
Coinstantinople: An exploration of early coins that helped define the new Byzantine capital (2011)
Buildings of The Past: Scale Models of Ancient Buildings and Monuments (2011)
Optimi Principes: New acquisitions of Roman Imperial Art Unveiled (2010)
Sex? in the City: Images of Sexuality in Roman Domestic Space (2009)
Bene Merenti: Inscriptions from the Roman Catacombs (2008)
Wondrous Print: Renaissance Books in Saskatchewan Collections (2007)
Oasis: Civilizations of the Desert (2007)
Art of Adornment (2006)
The Stonecarver's Craft (2005)
Greece Then & Now (2003)
The Museum also runs "Living History" Children's Summer Camps. [3] As part of its community outreach initiatives the Museum takes part in many cultural festivals such as the Heritage Festival of Saskatoon, Folkfest and Culture Days.
The Museum has a volunteer program for university students that allows them to learn about researching for and running a museum.
The Museum has partnered with the Canadian Light Source to research ancient coins. [4]
The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is the world's most-visited museum, and a historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters. Attendance in 2021 was 2.8 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic, up five percent from 2020, but far below pre-COVID attendance. Nonetheless, the Louvre still topped the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2021.
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display and the remainder in storerooms. Built in 1901 by the Italian construction company, Garozzo-Zaffarani, to a design by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon, the edifice is one of the largest museums in the region. As of March 2019, the museum was open to the public. In 2022, the museum is due to be superseded by the newer and larger Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza.
The Farnese Hercules is an ancient statue of Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD and signed by Glykon, who is otherwise unknown; the name is Greek but he may have worked in Rome. Like many other Ancient Roman sculptures it is a copy or version of a much older Greek original that was well known, in this case a bronze by Lysippos that would have been made in the fourth century BC. This original survived for over 1500 years until it was melted down by Crusaders in 1205 during the Sack of Constantinople. The enlarged copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, where the statue was recovered in 1546, and is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The heroically-scaled Hercules is one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity, and has fixed the image of the mythic hero in the European imagination.
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – particularly in palaeontology.
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The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations is located on the south side of Ankara Castle in the Atpazarı area in Ankara, Turkey. It consists of the old Ottoman Mahmut Paşa bazaar storage building, and the Kurşunlu Han. Because of Atatürk's desire to establish a Hittite museum, the buildings were bought upon the suggestion of Hamit Zübeyir Koşay, who was then Culture Minister, to the National Education Minister, Saffet Arıkan. After the remodelling and repairs were completed (1938–1968), the building was opened to the public as the Ankara Archaeological Museum.
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The National Archaeological Museum is a museum in Madrid, Spain. It is located on Calle de Serrano beside the Plaza de Colón, sharing its building with the National Library of Spain.
The Allard Pierson Museum is the archaeological museum of the University of Amsterdam. It is situated at the Oude Turfmarkt 127 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Artifacts from the ancient civilizations of ancient Egypt, the Near East, the Greek World, Etruria, and the Roman Empire are curated and exhibited in this museum.
The Museum of Byzantine Culture is a museum in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece, which opened in 1994.
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Hardstone carving is a general term in art history and archaeology for the artistic carving of predominantly semi-precious stones, such as jade, rock crystal, agate, onyx, jasper, serpentinite, or carnelian, and for an object made in this way. Normally the objects are small, and the category overlaps with both jewellery and sculpture. Hardstone carving is sometimes referred to by the Italian term pietre dure; however, pietra dura is the common term used for stone inlay work, which causes some confusion.
The Fleming Museum of Art is a museum of art and anthropology at the University of Vermont in Burlington. The museum's collection includes some 25,000 objects from a wide variety of eras and places. Until 2014, the museum was known as the Robert Hull Fleming Museum.
The Casts Museum occupies two rooms in the basement of the new building of the School of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Central Macedonia, Greece. The museum houses a collection of plaster casts, replicas and original archaeological artifacts. The collection dates from the time of the University's founding and is due to K. Romaio, Professor of Classical Archaeology.
The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is a museum of archaeology located on the University of Michigan central campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. The museum is a unit of the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. It has a collection of more than 100,000 ancient and medieval artifacts from the civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Near East. In addition to displaying its permanent and special exhibitions, the museum sponsors research and fieldwork and conducts educational programs for the public and for schoolchildren. The museum also houses the University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology.
Émile Gilliéron (1850–1924) was a Swiss artist and archaeological draftsman best known for his reconstructions of Mycenaean and Minoan artifacts from the Bronze Age.
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Tracene Harvey is the author of Julia Augusta: Images of Rome's First Empress on Coins of the Roman Empire. As of 2019, the book was the most comprehensive examination of the image of the Roman Empress, Julia Augusta, also known as Livia or Livia Drusilla, in existing Roman coins. Harvey is also the curator of the Museum of Antiquities (Saskatoon) at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.