In this number of the JOURNAL is presented a description of the collections in the Mediterranean Section of the Museum. This description, it is hoped, may serve a double purpose: to afford members and visitors to the Museum a general guide to those halls which contain some of the most important of the archaeological exhibits, and to furnish students everywhere with concise information about the contents of the Mediterranean Section. That section occupies, at present, two halls on the second floor, one at the right and one at the left of the main stairway. In addition to these two halls, the room adjoining Harrison Hall is used to display two Carthagian mosaics.
In the Mediterranean Section of the Museum are included a variety of objects unearthed in non-Semitic countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. These countries are Greece and Rome, with their far spread colonies and dependencies, from Spain to Asia Minor, and from Carthage to the Euxine, as the ancients called the Black Sea. Crete, the forerunner of Greece, is naturally included with these countries, as well as Cyprus, with its crude but impressionable art. Egypt and Syria, being Semitic countries, are, generally speaking, not represented in this section. Greek and Roman finds from Egypt are on view in the Egyptian Section, but Roman glass found in Syria is exhibited in the Mediterranean Section.
Lack of space precludes the display of reproductions of bronzes from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Some of these are to be seen in the Library of the Museum, others in the Lobby of the Auditorium, and many are stored. Likewise, the Etruscan sarcophagi and cinerary urns in the form of sarcophagi, and the bulk of the coins are not on exhibition
It is one of the purposes of this description to classify the objects in the Section, having regard to the localities from which they were derived, the uses they were made to serve, the materials from which they were made. The plan adopted is to arrange this classification in such a way that a visitor may be able to follow the collections intelligently and to understand their significance in connection with ancient history and ancient art.
The articles comprising the contents of this JOURNAL were prepared by Dr. Eleanor E. Rambo while she filled the position of Assistant Curator in the Mediterranean Section during the absence of Dr. Luce.