The Penn Museum’s nationally traveling exhibit returns home for a limited time this spring and summer, before traveling to additional sites. More than 200 ancient Sumerian treasures from the site of Ur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) will be on special display. Visitors can see what art critic, and former Metropolitan Museum of Art Director, Thomas Hoving has called “the finest, most resplendent and magical works of art in all of America” (artnet.com). Included are: the Ram-Caught-in-the-Thicket, Lady Puabi’s lapis lazuli and carnelian jewelry and headdress, an electrum drinking tumbler, a gold ostrich egg, a silver bull’s head, as well as other treasures, large and small, from this world-famous, 4500 year-old Sumerian collection.
“With continuing American involvement in Iraq and the region, public awareness and interest in Mesopotamia and the Penn Museum’s remarkable Ur material has expanded,” noted Dr. Richard Zettler, Associate Curator-in-charge in the Museum’s Near East Section and co-curator of the traveling Ur exhibition.“We wanted UPM’s visitors to be able to see and consider this important material while Iraq’s endangered cultural heritage, and, in fact, the endangered cultural heritage of so many peoples toddy, is so much in the headlines.”
Be sure to catch the exhibit while it is at the Penn Museum, from March 13 through September 2004.
PAM KOSTY is Assistant Director for Public Information at the Penn Museum.