Where can you find priceless jewelry, ancient sculptures, or a 29-foot-long temple pediment? Here’s a hint: you don’t have to travel very far.
For the past year, Meadows Museum has been transporting snapshots of an ancient culture from Italy to Dallas. Some have never been to the United States, but now they’re on SMU’s campus. The objects are part of the museum’s newest exhibit, “From the Temple and the Tomb: Etruscan Treasures from Tuscany.”
The exhibit highlights the Etruscans, an ancient people who ruled central Italy before the Romans. The Etruscans were taken over by the Romans around 400 B.C. and their way of life became a modern mystery.
The Meadows Museum intends to shed light on that mystery.
“The Etruscans have arrived in Dallas,” said Dr. Mark A. Roglán, director of the museum. The exhibit features more than 400 objects, dating from the ninth through the second centuries B.C.
Most pieces are on loan from the National Museum of Archaeology in Florence, Italy and are the property of the Italian government. Dr. Giuseppina Carlotta Cianferoni, director of the National Museum of Archaeology in Florence, was at SMU Thursday to attend a press preview and introduce some of the objects on display.
“There are a few pieces that have so rarely travelled that it is exceptional that they are here,” she said through Dr. Gregory P. Warden, who served as her translator. Warden is a University Distinguished Professor of Art History in SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.
Among the pieces that Cianferoni discussed was the temple pediment, or terracotta decoration for the front of an Etruscan temple. The pediment dates from the second century B.C. Another important piece is the “Mater Matuta,” which is an urn that depicts a female figure with a child on her lap. Other objects are from Etruscan tombs. The remnants are revealing. Buried in Italy is a modern culture, a world where women could own property and participate equally with males at social functions (a fact that disgruntled the Greeks.)
In addition, the museum is showcasing a complementary exhibition in its downstairs galleries, “New Light on the Etruscans: Fifteen Years of Excavation at Poggio Colla.” Findings from the SMU-led excavations in Tuscany are showcased for the first time in North America. The excavation site is Poggio Colla, an Etruscan settlement close to Florence. The site contains tombs, a temple, a pottery factory and an artisan community. The exhibition features about 100 objects that provide better insight into Etruscan daily life.
The project was partly headed by Warden, the co-director of the excavation. “It’s a question of quality and great curatorial thought that went into this,” he said.
The exhibits will be on display in the Meadows Museum from Jan. 25 to May 17. The Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $8 per person, free on Thursday evenings after 5 p.m., and free for SMU faculty and students. For more information about the exhibits, visit meadowsmuseumdallas.org or call 214-768-2516.
