(Originally posted: 3/13/2011)
For those who enjoy museums, there really is no shortage of good places to visit in the Midwest. Sure, we don’t have anything like the Louvre or the Guggenheim, but places like the Indiana University Art Museum and Indianapolis Art Museum are good diversions and have some intersting pieces. For those who like prehistoric or ancient art, the choices are generally a little more sparse, however. The Field Museum in Chicago is first rate, of course, and the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus has probably the best collection of Ohio Hopewell artifacts in the world. But the Smithsonian, the Peabody, the National Museum of the American Indian–those are a bit farther away than a day trip.
Right now, we Midwesterners are fortunate to have two travelling exhibits bringing some really interesting ancient art to the region. And even better, the two exhibits are located on opposite ends of the region, so at least one is probably within easy driving distance! I haven’t seen either yet, but I plan to see both before they leave the area.
The first is currently on display at the St. Louis Art Museum, entitled “Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea.” The show includes 90 pieces of classic Maya art, many of which have never been on display in the US before. The pieces all share the theme of water, and the exhibit space is divided into cosmological and ideological sections. For an archaeologist interested in ideation, such as myself, this is really exciting. The show runs through May 8.
The second show is at the Cincinnati Museum Center and is called “Cleopatra: the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” This show features Egyptian artifacts from the early Roman period, especially many recently-recovered artifacts from Alexandria that relate to the life of Cleopatra VII. She’s the one with a Shakespearean play and about a dozen movies based on her life. For anyone interested in Egyptian art or culture, this is probably the biggest travelling exhibit to reach the US since “The Treasures of Tutankhamun” more than 30 years ago. Its run in Cincinnati is through September 5.
Now for an obligatory caveat: The St. Louis Art Museum is (obviously) an art museum, and the Cincinnati Museum Center is a more general museum of arts and sciences. Neither is a museum primarily devoted to archaeology or history, and the exhibits seem to be primarily conceived of as displays of art. This is really not a probem, so far as it goes, but there is a danger for archaeology here. Artifacts on display in art museums can easily be divorced from any cultural context, or even attached to inapproprate contexts accidentally. Since archaeologists are primarily interested in the people who made the artifacts, such disconnection can really reduce the value of a piece. For the general public, really interesting pieces may be reduced to pretty decorations with no greater significance. Not having seen either exhibit yet, I can’t say how well the displays convey the context of each piece; I hope the exhibition designers took such matters seriously.
The other caveat about exhibitions of ancient art is that they can potentially give the general public a skewed view of what archaeology does. After all, the average person of the street already believes that we barge into ancient ruins, grab the shiniest gold statue, then run. When shows like this carefully pick out only the most stricking and aesthetic pieces for display, they can reiniforce those misconceptions. I’ve repeatedly noticed disappointed expressions when the public visits archaeological excavations and we can’t pull a silver idol out to show. A few broken potsherds and a chert flake can’t stand up to the expectations of a public raised on Indiana Jones. At least, not without some serious interpretive work on the part of the archaeologist.
That’s why, even while I’m excited about these exhibits and will certainly see them, I always encourage my non-archaeologists friends and family to visit interpretive centers as well as museums. The Cahokia Mounds Interpretive Center, Angel Mounds State Historic Site, and recently-renovated Moundville Archaeological Museum show not only the best pieces, but also the typical pieces, and explain why those ugly bits of broken ceramic are just as valuable and interesting. For archaeologists, that’s a major part of what we do!
When I’ve had the opportunity to see both “Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea” and “Cleopatra: the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt” I’ll be sure to post my thoughts here.