Friday, October 24, 2014

Assyria to Iberia

Metropolitan Museum of Art has a new exhibit titled Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age. This is part of a review by Melik Kaylan:
 
From Assyria's zenith to Babylon's rise, the Phoenicians acted as the universalizing mediators of culture via the Internet of their time: the sea. They invented the phonetic alphabet. They founded Carthage. They took their multicultural spores to Etruscan Italy and as far as Seville, Spain, thereby feeding the roots of later Roman and Western art. Along the way, repeatedly, we feel the powerful charm of gorgeous or poignant objects, such as the exquisitely inscribed large seashells that are displayed together here but were found across continents. The most striking artifacts of all, for this reviewer, turned out to be the chunky gold bracelets and royal jewelry of the Carambolo Treasure, from an ancient Phoenician city that became Seville, Spain.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/assyria-to-iberia-at-the-dawn-of-the-classical-age-at-the-met-1412202408?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle

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