Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Exhibition: Amarna at UPenn

"Another review of Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun, running from November 12th through October 2007 at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology:
"Seeking a place where no other gods were held sacred, Akhenaten moved the capital of the Egyptian kingdom from its traditional seat at Thebes to a spot on the eastern bank of the Nile River, where he built the city now known as Amarna - and moved 20,000 people there - in about 12 years.
Stone statues and reliefs at the heart of the exhibit reflect the changes Akhenaten imposed on Egyptian society. Trumpeting a religion that for the first time in recorded history relied on the belief in a single god, Akhenaten strove to turn his monotheistic subjects to the worship of the Aten - the sun disc. . . . As a result, temple architecture under Akhenaten changed because the buildings no longer had to accommodate three-dimensional renderings of the gods. Art took on more naturalistic, curved lines, as can be seen in the full-figured, if headless, statue of a princess on display."

Another article on the same subject can be found at:
"esides the Amarna exhibition, the museum's Upper and Lower Egyptian galleries have gotten a face-lift, so the continuing exhibits of mummies and the like have upgraded space and interpretation. The Amarna exhibition is an appetizer for the highly anticipated show Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs, coming in February from Egypt to the Franklin Institute Science Museum. "

17th November 2006
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