Arkaim. Catalogue of the exhibition

Arkaim  Historical and Cultural Reserve

Arkaim. Catalogue of the exhibition

Abstract

Аркаим. Поселение эпохи бронзы. Древнейшие индоевропейцы в степях Урала. Каталог выставки. Выставка проходила в Департаментском музее чудес (Тенд, Франция) 26 июня 2010 — 2 апреля 2011 г. / Arkaim. Settlement of the Bronze Age. Ancient Indo-European People in the Urals Steppes. Catalogue of the exhibition. Tende-department of the Maritime Alps. June 26 2010 — Aprial 2 2011.

TWO AMENEMHATS. EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ◉ In 1893 Vladimir Semyonovich Golénischeff, Russia’s first Egyptologist, keeper at the Imperial Hermitage and an extremely successful and informed collector, published an article in which he proposed identifying one of the sphinxes from Tanis in the Nile Delta, successively usurped by several rulers, as a depiction of Amenemhat III, one of the greatest rulers of the Middle Kingdom. At the time the identification of Egyptian rulers was a matter of considerable complexity, since very few inscribed royal portraits from the Middle Kingdom were known. Gol.nischeff was helped in his task by a statue in the Hermitage that has the titulary of Amenemhat III preserved almost in its entirety. Through comparison with a fragment of a statue in his own collection that had a well preserved face, he was able to establish the characteristic features of Amenemhat III and thus lay the basis for serious study of royal portraiture in the Middle Kingdom. Royal sculpture of this age was a quite unique phenomenon. In the Old Kingdom, with its utter concentration of power in the hands of the king, the accent was on the ruler’s divine status, leading to the creation of statues with abstracted expressions that seem to gaze upon eternity. The move away from centralisation in the Middle Kingdom meant that rulers came to be depicted with the concentrated, weary expressions of mortals and considerable emphasis was placed on those elements that indicated their age. Of greatest interest in this sense, the most acute in psychological terms, are the portraits of Senusret III and his son Amenemhat III. The Hermitage statue depicts the latter at a relatively early age, with youthfully soft lips and flesh around the mouth, smooth skin and still not quite shaped face. Golénischeff’s Amenemhat (now in the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts) is older, the mouth fi rmer and more decisive; there are folds in the flesh running diagonally out from the inner corner of the eyes, harbingers of the bags beneath the eyes that are characteristic of late statues of the ruler. This exhibition of two statues of Amenemhat III with a connection of Golénischeff has been organised to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the Egyptologist’s birth. The catalogue describes his career at the Hermitage, the formation of his collection and how it was acquired for the Moscow museum.

The prehistoric settlement in Golo Bardo locality in the vicinity of the villages of Gradishte and Asenovtsi, Levski Municipality, Pleven Region, is the largest settlement in this region, discovered during the preliminary field surveys along the route of the gas pipeline. The settlement is located in the southern part of the Lower Danube valley, on a river terrace of the river Osam. The terrain is flat, slightly sloping to the north and northeast. The sources of several rivers are located in the immediate vicinity. During the rescue archaeological excavations conducted in 2019 and 2020, part of the site was excavated. Sunken and above-ground structures were revealed. The first human presence at this place dates from the earliest stages of the Late Neolithic (5100 – 4900 BC), when a settlement emerged on an area of about 19 ha. In the material culture, one could observe the presence of a number of new elements, a kind of symbiosis between the western Vinča Culture A3/B1, the northern Dudeşti Culture, and the eastern Samovodene-Ovcharovo Culture. A typical feature of the settlement from this period is the presence of structures dug into the alluvial horizon, some of which could be defined as the remains of semi-dug-out dwellings with thermal facilities at their peripheries. From this period, special areas for the production of flint tools were identified, as well as depots for the extracted raw material. Dog skulls were found deposited in several of the pits, indicating the existence of an unknown Neolithic cult practice. A new type of stylized seated anthropomorphic figurines was discovered here – some of them are bisexual, hermaphroditic images. The fertile soils and abundant water sources provided good conditions for meeting the basic needs of the inhabitants. The discovery of a significant number of standardized sickles made from the antlers of red deer (Cervus elaphus) indicates the practising of intensive agriculture, the production of which probably served not only to meet the needs of the inhabitants of the village, but also for exchange. One of the richest collections of bone tools was discovered in the settlement. It is not clear why this population abandoned the village, but after a short interruption, small groups of new inhabitants resettled here during the Late Neolithic Period (Podgoritsa Cultural Group, 4750 – 4600 BC). To this period, the remains of massive above-ground buildings could be attributed. They were burnt down before the village was abandoned, and the burnt remains were “hidden” in specially prepared pits. Later, the place was inhabited by people that migrated from the west, carriers of the Early Chalcolithic Gradeshnitsa Culture (Brenitsa Phase), and once again during the later phase of the Early Chalcolithic by a population from Polyanitsa/Boyan Culture (4550-4400 BC). At this time, the buildings were already above-ground, with a rectangular shape oriented southeast-northwest. This settlement was destroyed by fire, which is the reason why the place was left for good. To this period belong also two shallow pits, covered inside with large fragments of thick-walled ceramic pithos. In one of them, there was a depot of seven ceramic vessels, and in the other – pottery sherds and a necklace of clay beads.

The exhibition ‘Brush and Qalam’ marks the 200th anniversary of the Asiatic Museum (the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences), one of the world’s richest collections of Oriental manuscripts. The exhibition aims to showcase the beauty of decoration as well as the variety and unique identity of different types of Oriental manuscripts from the cultural and historical perspective. The catalogue introduces its readers to a selection of manuscripts and blockprints produced by peoples of the East, whose array of book cultures over the last two millennia spanned an area from Europe all the way to Japan. For the sake of convenience, exhibits are grouped into three big sections, each one concerned with a big region characterised by the unity of culture and history: 1) Near East and Middle East; 2) India and Central Asia; 3) Far East. Largely formal, this separation is linked not so much to geography as to the spread and movement of cultures. Thus, at different points of time, the bulk of Central Asia was dominated by different religious traditions, first Buddhism and then Islam, which gave birth to diverse book cultures, reaching back to India and the Middle East respectively. It is for that reason that the books created in this region are dealt with in two separate sections. The same applies to India of the Mughal period, which saw the bloom of the Muslim book culture, so intimately linked to the Persian one, which is described in the ‘Near East’ section. The catalogue features 200 exhibits, among which manuscripts and blockprints from the holdings of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts as well as artefacts related to the production and use of books from the State Hermitage Museum. This relationship is interpreted as broadly as possible, embracing not only objects that are directly associated with the making and reading of books (brushes, qalams, pencases, inkwells, woodblocks), but also religious items used alongside books (icons, crosses, ornaments), visual parallels in decoration (clothes, mural fragments), objects connected with their buyers and owners (coins) and finally pieces reproducing the cultural environment of the epoch. The manuscripts from each section are put in chronological order, and the objects are grouped so as to give a better picture of the cultural and visual context within which books were made and used in the East.

А Н Н О Т А Ц И Я. В статье рассматриваются выявленные в ходе исследования источники изучения состава и особенностей представления анатомической коллекции голландского анатома Фр. Рюйша в Амстердаме, в Петербурге в Кикиных палатах и в новом здании Кунсткамеры на Васильевском острове. Важными документами для исследования являются рукописные каталоги приема собрания Фр. Рюйша в Амстердаме Л. Л. Блюментростом, а также каталог, составленный уже в Петербурге при размещении коллекции в Кикиных палатах. Для доказательной базы определения назначения рукописных каталогов большое значение имеют выявленные экземпляры «Тезаурусов» Фр. Рюйша, которыми пользовался Блюментрост в Амстердаме, с его собственными пометами. Изучение этих источников дало возможность сделать вывод о смысловых изменениях, произошедших в ходе систематизации анатомических препаратов в академическом музее, их экспонировании и описании в каталоге «Musei Imperialis Petropolitani vol. I». Первоначально большинство анатомических препаратов были для Рюйша объектом исследования и материалом для ряда научных открытий, о которых он писал в своих «Тезаурусах». Но Рюйш прилагал усилия не только для сохранения препарата, он декорировал навершия банок, вставлял искусственные глаза в глазницы, составлял целые композиции из нескольких препаратов, тем самым придавая новое, символическое, значение препарату: из объекта и результата исследования естественнонаучный препарат превращался в артефакт. Анатомический препарат в Кунсткамере, в отличие от того же препарата у Рюйша, стал носителем иной культурной информации и иных смысловых значений, выполняя функцию объекта для исследований, обу чения и просвещения.

На изложби "Златна архитектура Пирота" представљамо 20 радова, величине 60 х 60 цм, у техници интервенција на фотографији. Природа изложбе је двојaка: архитектонска и уметничка. Тема радова односи се на област наслеђа и заштите споменика културе, али и на савремену визуелну уметност, теорију и историју архитектуре. Радови су резултат ликовног компоновања различитих архитектонских мотива који су, техником дигиталног колажа, спојени у специфичне целине-у складу са циљем изложбе. А циљ ове презентације је померање фокуса са конфекцијске на заштићену архитектуру града Пирота. Ликовном интервенцијом наглашен је процес вредновања наслеђене архитектуре, према усвојеној идеји уметности као сонди друштва. Фотографије су реализоване техником аналогне црно-беле фотографије, средњег формата (6 х 6 цм), која је пребачена у дигитални запис. Дигитални принт је изведен на сликарском платну, на блинд-раму. Радови су урамљени танким необрађеним дрвеним лајснама. Међународни одбор и савет изложбе формирани су ради остваривања њеног међународног карактера. Панел-дискусија на отварању Изложбе организована је са циљем повезивања блиских народа и њихове културе. Наша намера је да се преко архитектуре и уметности додатно учврсте пријатељски односи, као и да се да се кроз међународну сарадњу снага културе усмери ка обликовању бољег друштва Аутор Exhibition named "Golden Architecture of Pirot" consists of 20 artworks (60 x 60 cm each). Technically, artworks are overpainted photographs. The character of the exhibition is twofold: architectural and artistic. The theme has its roots in the heritage and preservation protection of cultural monuments, but it also belongs to contemporary visual art, architectural design, theory and history of architecture. Artworks present artistic compositions of various architectural motifs which are, using a technique of digital collage, combined in specific and original structures, that match the exhibition's goal. Main aim of this exhibition is to shift the focus from schematic to protected architecture. Using the artistic intervention, the process of evaluation of inherited architecture is emphasised. The photographs are created using the technique of analogue black and white photography of medium format (6 x 6 cm) transferred to the digital record. Photos are printed on canvas, in digital print technique. Artworks are framed in thin, untreated wooden frames. The International Committee and the Council of the exhibition were formed to work on the international character of the exhibition. Panel-discussion at the opening of the exhibition is organized with the goal to connecting close communities and their culture. My intention is to further strengthen friendly relations through architecture and art, as well as to direct the power of culture towards the formation of a better society through international cooperation. Author

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