Photo by Bryan R. Smith
Mosaics, paintings, jewelry, ceramics, manuscripts from the 4th to the 15th century: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York presents 200 ancient and medieval works that reflect a thousand years of influence of the Byzantine Empire on the Christian communities of Egypt, Tunisia and Ethiopia.
One of the richest in the world, the museum brought together gems from collections from Africa, Asia and Europe for an exhibition titled “Africa & Byzantium”, from Sunday until next March.
The Met gave a preview this week to a few journalists with its partners, the governments of Egypt and Tunisia and the oldest Coptic Orthodox monastery in the world, St Catherine of Sinai, Egypt.
Bringing together artistic, religious, literary and archaeological treasures, “Africa & Byzantium” shows the impact of the Byzantine Empire from its capital Constantinople — formerly Byzantium and now Constantinople — to Christianity, which spread to the Horn of Africa from the 4th to the 7th century.
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According to Met CEO Max Hollein, the exhibition “brings new focus and scholarship to an understudied field, expanding our knowledge of Byzantine and early Christian art within an expanded worldview.”
Visitors will be able to see painted manuscripts, textiles, marble mosaics, carved ivories from Nubia, gold jewelry from Egypt, murals — many of which are on display for the first time in the United States.
The works explore the links between cultural and multi-religious communities from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, combining Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Christian and Jewish traditions, the Met said.
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Tunisia’s Minister of Cultural Affairs Haye Getat Germazi told AFP the pieces show the world her country’s “rich cultural heritage which is the result of a mixture of different cultures that have occupied the Mediterranean” along with a “local African institution”.
Archbishop Damianos, of St. Catherine of Sinai, praised the exhibition, saying that it “gives us the opportunity to recall the ecumenicalism of Byzantium, which is a proposal for freedom, unity, reconciliation, respect and peace, the peace that the our world today”.
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