Category: Middle East

General Views

23/06/2021 Julianna Cognetta

From Bethany to al-Eizariya

Exhibit Curator:

Yara Abbas
Palestine, 2016

Postcard

This 8.6 x 13.9cm postcard printed on paper depicts a reproduction of a painting by an unknown painter showing a general view of Bethany and its surroundings.

Published and printed in London by Photochrom Co., Ltd. This postcard has been previously used and mailed. A vicar had acquired this postcard in the ‘Holy Land’, but it appears to have been sent from England by a lady called Geraldine to a Miss Jackson, here in London.

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My Journey is my Home

21/06/2021 Emily Austin

My Home is my Life

Exhibit Curators:

Ivan Radman-Livaja
Croatia, 2018

Bassem Mohammed
Ezzat
Egypt, 2018

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Tent pole bag, okbash

Bags used to cover tent pole ends, made of felted wool, horse hair and cotton are manufactured by Uzbek nomads across Central Asia. Used in pairs, they are embroidered and embellished with horse hair tassels and woven straps. Made for the bridal dowry, these bags were utilitarian objects of high symbolic value. Commonly decorated with patterns that celebrate fertility or provide protection such as ram’s horns and celestial motifs, the okbash are an essential item in nomadic life.

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Life After Death

20/06/2021 Julianna Cognetta

Treasures from the Royal Tomb of Ur

Exhibit Curators:

Aprille Tijam
Philippines, 2019

Diana Mohamed Ahmed Digma
Sudan, 2019

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Funerary headdress from ‘The Great Death Pit’ at Ur

Royal funerals in Mesopotamia were public spectacles involving music, performance and feasting events that took place over several weeks. They marked the transition to the afterlife and reaffirmed traditional power structures in early cities.

This funerary headdress was found on the body of a female court attendant. It is made from two strands of lapis-lazuli beads from Afghanistan and carnelian beads from northwest India. The leaf-shaped pendants are made from imported gold. Ur was a large urban centre located near the Persian Gulf that controlled the trade in exotic goods.

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Smelling Aromatic Smoke

19/06/2021 Adam Ferrarotti

Treasures of Ancient South Arabia

Exhibit Curator:

Saeed Obaid Ba Yashoot
Yemen, 2016

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Limestone incence burner

Yemen, 2ndC BC – 1stC BC

Pink limestone cuboid incense burner carved with an inscription in the ancient South Arabian script known as al-musnad. The inscription gives us the names of four different types of incense or aromatic substances that may have been burned in this incense burner: qust, dhahab (possibly a golden-coloured resin), rand, and na’am. Darkened marks in the interior of the bowl of the burner, along the top, the inside rim and in a circular patch in the centre, all presumably reflect its intense functional use as an incense-burner.

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What can we do with sand?

19/06/2021 Adam Ferrarotti

Glass in all its forms

Exhibit Curator:

Marie-Antoinette Gemayel
Lebanon, 2016

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Alabastron

This coloured glass alabastron is made of gold leaf sandwiched between translucent coloured glass sheets.

The rim is broad and flat, the cylindrical neck is made from a separate piece of cut and ground colourless glass and the fusiform body is decorated, from top to bottom, with wavy stripes arranged in three groups of polychrome bands

This alabastron was among a collection of objects which M. Durighello corresponded with Augustus W. Franks about in a later dated 9 April 1895, and to which he referred to as “a Phoenician perfume flask, in beautiful coloured glass … coming from Sidon”.