THE LOST WORLD OF OLD EUROPE THE DANUBE VALLEY 5000-3500 BC 20 MAY—15 AUGUST 2010 Supported by The Leon Levy Foundation Press Information

Contact Details: Susie Gault Head of Press & Publicity Ashmolean Museum Oxford OX1 2PH United Kingdom t: +44 (0)1865 288 298 e: [email protected]

Claire Parris Press Office Ashmolean Museum Oxford OX1 2PH United Kingdom t+44 (0)1865 278 178 e: [email protected]

THE LOST WORLD

OF

O L D E U R O P E : T H E D A N U B E V A L L E Y , 5000 – 3500 B C

20 May–15 August 2010 Exhibition Object Highlights

Female Figurine Female figurines were fashioned by most Neolithic societies in this region, Female Figurine Fired Clay and are the most widely known category of objects from ‘Old Europe’. Cucuteni, Drăguşeni, Traditional scholarship has identified these figurines as representations of a 4050–3900 BC Botoşani County powerful ‘mother goddess’. However, this single, overarching interpretation Museum has recently been challenged: the great variety of contexts in which the figurines are found (burials, households, hoards, and sanctuaries) suggests that they might have assumed different social, cultural, and even religious connotations according to the specific audience and environment for which they were modeled. The miniature female bodies are characterised by their stylised form, as in this figurine. They are also often decorated with incised or painted geometric and abstract patterns.

The ‘Thinker’ and Female Figurine from Cernavodă These two figurines were found among the grave goods excavated at the Hamangia necropolis of Cernavodă in 1956. The male figure, elbows on his knees and hands on either side of his face, sits on a low four-legged stool. The woman, seated on the ground, has one leg extended forward and the other bent at the knee. In the Neolithic period, male figurines constituted a small minority of the very large corpus of figurines found both in cemeteries and in households. Even more striking is the fact that this male figurine is coupled with a female one, a rarity that indicates a relationship between the two. While his gesture has been interpreted as reflective of a pensive state, it could also be taken as a symbol of mourning. Both figurines were deposited in a grave, as if to accompany the deceased into the afterlife.

Copper Metallurgy Copper metallurgy was a fundamental innovation that changed life for all European societies. The discovery of smelting permitted metalworkers to extract huge quantities of pure metallic copper from the abundant malachite and azurite ores of southeastern Europe, and led quickly to the excavation of large mines in Bulgaria and Serbia. The

The ‘Thinker’ and Female Figurine from Cernavodă Fired Clay Hamangia, Cernavodă, 5000–4600 BC National History Museum of Romania

Axe Copper Cucuteni, Bogdăneşti, 3700–3500 BC Moldova National Museum Complex,

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shape of this copper axe indicates that it was probably made in the western Carpathian region. Marks resulting from its use can be seen on its surface.

Zoomorphic Figures, possibly bulls Excavated in 1974, these two appliqués formed part of a rich array of grave goods that included gold, copper, flint, bone, and ceramic objects. With perforated edges for sewing onto the clothing of the deceased, these appliqués may have functioned as amulets. The two animals have been identified as bulls by the shapes of their horns and tails. Representations of bulls are widespread among Neolithic societies in this region. Zoomorphic Figures, possibly bulls Gold, from Varna, Varna, Grave 36 4400–4200 BC Varna Regional Museum of History

Spondylus Bracelets Made of Spondylus gaederopus, a shell found only in the Mediterranean Sea, these bracelets attest to some of the oldest long-distance trade networks of a specific, identifiable natural resource. Archaeological excavations have shown that this precious material could be transported over 2000 kilometers from the Aegean coasts to northern Europe in the 5th millennium BC. Traded mostly in an un-worked or roughly worked state, the shells were locally carved to fulfill the desired aesthetics of the Neolithic societies that acquired and used them. These conically shaped bracelets are made from single shells and are of a type favored by the Hamangia culture.

Monumental Tripartite Vessel Found in a domestic context, this spherical vessel rests on a hollow cylindrical stand and is covered by a bell-shaped lid. The three elements were meant to be used as an ensemble and are covered with a pattern of interlocking black spiral outlines placed against a red background. While the vessel’s ultimate function is still subject to debate, its impressive monumental size, combined with its complex tripartite construction and intricate decoration, may suggest a ceremonial purpose.

Spondylus Bracelets Spondylus Hamangia, Cernavodă, 5000–4600 BC National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest and National History and Archaeology Museum, Constanţa

Monumental Tripartite Vessel Fired Clay Cucuteni, Scânteia, 4200–4050 BC Moldova National Museum Complex, Iaşi:

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Touring programme for THE L OST WORLD OF O LD E UROPE : T HE D ANUBE V ALLEY 5,000–3,500 BC


11 November 2009 – 25 April 2010 The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University (ISAW)




20 May – 15 August 2010 The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford




October 2010 – January 2011 Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Greece

The Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum is the most significant museum of art and archaeology in the heart of Britain, and one of the finest university museum in the world. Its collections are large, rich and unusually diverse, ranging from archaeology to fine and decorative arts, and from numismatics to casts of classical sculpture from the great museums of Europe. The Ashmolean is home to the best collection of Predynastic Egyptian material in Europe; the only great collection of Minoan antiquities outside Greece; the largest and most important group of Raphael drawings in the world; the greatest Anglo-Saxon collections outside the British Museum; a world-renowned collection of coins and medals; and outstanding displays of Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Islamic art. The works and objects in these remarkable collections tell the story of civilisation and the aspirations of mankind from Nineveh and Ancient Egypt, to the Renaissance, right up to the triumphs of the twentieth century. Today, the four commitments of teaching, research, public access and education, remain at the heart of the Ashmolean’s work. Its mission is to make its collections of art and archaeology available to the widest possible audience, now and in the future, by exhibiting, preserving and interpreting its objects for study, enjoyment and inspiration. Public access is at the forefront of its activities, and admission today continues to be free. The Museum now holds over half a million objects and works of art in its collections. These are used to present cultures and civilisations from around the globe to thousands of people every year.

The New Ashmolean The Ashmolean has undertaken the most complete makeover in its long history. In a £61 million redevelopment, the Museum reopened to the public in November 2009, following a major programme of rebuilding and redisplay to transform its public face and to radically change the way that its collections are viewed. The Museum has now gained a world-class building to rival its impressive collections, including new temporary exhibition galleries that will allow the Ashmolean to host important travelling exhibitions. The Museum has devised a new display and interpretation strategy. By highlighting connections between different cultures, the Ashmolean aims to encourage a reconsideration of the contemporary world in response to the material world of the past. A stunning new building, designed by architect Rick Mather, replaces all but the original 1845 Museum designed by Charles Cockerell. Located in the centre of Oxford, a city renowned for its architectural heritage, the new building can hardly be seen from the street. However, once inside visitors will find light, open spaces and contemporary design. Arranged over five floors with level access throughout, it provides 39 new galleries and

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100% more display space than the former building. This allows us to display hundreds of objects that were previously in storage. Advanced environmental controls allow even the most rare and fragile items to be on view. A suite of four new temporary exhibition galleries gives the Ashmolean the opportunity to hold major exhibitions and to become one of the country’s most important exhibition venues. A purpose-built EDUCATION CENTRE, with its own entrance, has been created, as well as three new study centres with hands-on access to reserve collections, greatly improving our provision for the needs of school parties and scholars, as well as the general public. State-of-the-art conservation facilities have transformed our ability to care for the Museum’s treasures. Making the most of its new rooftop space, the Museum is now home to Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant, where visitors can enjoy high quality food in a spectacular setting.

A New Display Strategy The Ashmolean’s collections span the civilisations of east and west. Previously, the collections were displayed with a traditional emphasis on typology. CROSSING CULTURES CROSSING TIME is a new display strategy that will change the way visitors experience the collections. It has been developed in collaboration with exhibition designers Metaphor. Based on the idea that objects can be understood in many different contexts, from their conventional historical settings to cross-culturally as objects with universal functions, the strategy aims to stimulate an enquiring and reflective attitude towards the cultures and civilisations that have shaped the world in which we live. Our innovative display strategy transforms the way these rare and beautiful objects are experienced and understood by visitors, and maximises both the aesthetic and educational potential of our collections. Visitors to the Museum can go on a journey – starting on the CROSSING CULTURES FLOOR (lower ground floor), where themed galleries explore the connections between objects and activities common to different cultures – such as money, human image, reading and writing and textiles. Three further floors provide fresh insights into the interaction of the cultures of east and west during ancient and modern times. On the ANCIENT WORLD FLOOR, objects dating from prehistory to c. AD 700 plot the emergence and flowering of ancient cultures from Egypt and the Near East, through Greece and Rome, to India and China. The MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD FLOORS bring the story up to date. The galleries explore the art, religion, geography and ecology of cultures from Europe to the Far East, tracing the intermingling of people and objects that has shaped the world we live in today. This world is represented on a floor devoted to galleries of 19th–21st century art and major temporary exhibitions. Orientation galleries on each floor introduce key themes and provide story-trails to be followed, allowing visitors to plan their own routes through different cultures and eras, and to make those illuminating connections and comparisons that bring the past to life.

Funders and supporters of the new Ashmolean Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage. HLF has supported more than 28,800 projects, allocating over £4.3 billion across the UK. For more information, please call Katie Owen, HLF Press Office on tel: +44 20 7591 6036/ +44 7973 613820. The Ashmolean Museum is one of a number of major building projects that form "Oxford Thinking: The Campaign for the University of Oxford", along with the other major themes of support for students and support for academic

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posts and programmes. The Campaign was launched in May 2008 with a minimum goal of £1.25 billion and is the largest fundraising Campaign in European university history. The current Campaign total is £770 million.

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University (ISAW) ISAW is an independent center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education, intended to cultivate comparative and connective investigations of the ancient world. Its’ mission is to encourage approaches in research and graduate education that are geographically inclusive, encompassing cultures from the western Mediterranean to China, and to cross the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, promoting methodologies open to the integration of every category of evidence and method of analysis. Anthropology, archaeology, geography, history, economics, sociology, art history, and the history of science and technology will be as integral to the enterprise as the study of texts, philosophy, and the analysis of artefacts. ISAW features doctoral and postdoctoral programs, with the aim of training a new generation of scholars to become intellectual leaders in the global academic community. It will also engage the larger scholarly community and the public with major international loan exhibitions and associated public programming. ISAW was established in 2006 with funds from the Leon Levy Foundation. The inspiration for the Institute was the lifelong passion for the study of the ancient world shared by Leon Levy and his wife, Shelby White, who is the Founder of ISAW and the Chairman of its Board. ISAW’s director is the distinguished historian and papyrologist Roger S. Bagnall, formerly professor of classics at Columbia University.

Museum of Cycladic Art The Museum of Cycladic Art is dedicated to the study and promotion of ancient cultures of the Aegean and Cyprus, with special emphasis on Cycladic Art of the 3rd millennium BC. It was founded in 1986, to house the collection of Nicholas and Dolly Goulandris. Since then it has grown in size to accommodate new acquisitions, obtained either through direct purchases or through donations by important collectors and institutions. Today, in the galleries of the MCA visitors can approach three major subjects:


the Cycladic culture of the Early Bronze Age ( 3200 - 2000 BC)




Ancient Greek art, from the Bronze Age to Late Roman times (2nd millennium BC - 4th century AD)




Cypriot culture from the Chalcolithic Age to the Early Christian period (4th millennium BC - 6th century AD)

Loan Museums National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest The National History Museum of Romania (MNIR) was established in 1970, being headquartered in a building listed as a historical monument, erected during 1894–1900 and situated in the historical centre of Romania’s capital. Nowadays, the National History Museum of Romania represents the most important historic museum in Romania. While in 1972, the date of its opening, the museum collection consisted of little more than 30,000 objects, today the museum owns a vast heritage of over 650,000 movable cultural goods (a number that increases constantly,

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throughout archaeological excavations, acquisitions and donations) organised into the following collections: pottery, lapidarium and tegularium, numismatics, philately, medals and seals, treasury, manuscripts, printed documents, graphic art, decorative art, historic photo archive, metal, arms and military equipment, textiles and furniture. Directly related to the nature of these collections and to the general specific functionality, the museum includes a series of dedicated departments: Archaeology, Heritage-Conservation, History, Museology, Multidisciplinary Researches, Museum Education and Public Relations, Numismatics and Treasury, Preventive Archaeology, Restoration-Investigation. The main highlights of the museum’s permanent exhibitions are the Historical Treasure, exhibiting a unique selection of artefacts made of precious metal dating from prehistoric to modern times and the Lapidarium, presenting epigraphic and architectural materials, from classical and medieval periods, as well as the full scale copy of Trajan’s Column in Rome, a remarkable historical testimony for the formation of the Romanian people. The fact that a large part of nowadays Romania, namely the kingdom of Dacia became part of the Roman Empire since the 2nd c. A.D. is well-known by scholars and the large public interested in ancient history. Yet not the same thing can be said about a more distant prehistoric epoch, respectively the Neo-Eneolithic period which flourished in the area of the Lower Danube. But one can say today that the unveiling to the Western scholars and public of one of the most spectacular and oldest civilisation in European prehistory owes greatly to a very ambitious initiative launched by The Institute of the Study Ancient World (ISAW) in New York in summer 2008. Throughout a very challenging and honouring collaboration with ISAW and The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the National History Museum is proud to present —in partnership with other 17 Romanian museums and research institutes— the exhibition entitled The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley 5,000–3,500 BC. This is the first archaeological exhibition organised in the UK presenting an exquisite selection of 175 archaeological objects of exceptional value belonging to the national cultural heritage of Romania, together with 30 similar ones found in the collections of the other two participant museums in the exhibition, The Regional History Museum in Varna (Bulgaria) and The National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova (Chişinău, Republic of Moldova). The cultural artefacts selected to be part of this exhibition offer the public, as well as the scholars the possibility to reflect upon the amazing, avant la lettre modernity of the prehistoric civilisations that existed in the CarpathoDanubian area more than seven millennia ago, a perspective outlined by an iconic figurine, the so-called Thinker, one of the most valuable objects from Romania’s National Heritage.

Varna Regional Museum of History, Bulgaria The Varna Regional Museum of History is one of the oldest museums in Bulgaria and its rich collections are well known worldwide. It consists of six museums covering all historical periods, a Natural History Museum and three open-air museums: the Roman baths of 2nd-3rd century AD, a rock-cut medieval monastery (13th-14th centuries) and the “Stone Forest” – a geological phenomenon of petrified woods. Amongst these, the most popular and renowned museum is the Varna Museum of Archaeology. Its collections were established in 1887 and the first permanent exhibition was opened to the public in 1906. During its 120-year history, the Museum has contributed to archaeological excavations in the City of Varna and at various sites in the Varna Region, Northeast Bulgaria and the Western Black Sea coast. The Museum of Archaeology holds over 100 000 artefacts. They cover a broad range of Balkan history, from the Paleolithic era (100, 000-10, 000 BC) up to the late-medieval/ Ottoman period of 15th-18th centuries. One of the most exciting collections is from the famous Varna Eneolithic Necropolis of 4400-4200 BC, which has yielded the earliest known examples of worked-gold to be found anywhere in the world. The discovery of more than 6 kg of precious-metal objects, mostly pure gold jewellery, has offered unique new information about a highly developed and well-organised Copper Age society.

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The National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova, Chişinău The National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova is the country’s leading museum of art and archaeology. The Museum was founded in 1983 and is located in an architecturally important 19th century building. The permanent collections number some 320,000 objects. They cover the history of Moldova from prehistoric to modern times and reflect the role that Moldova has played in international history. The Museum’s collections span art and archaeology, numismatics, books and photographs, arms and textiles, furniture and more. In recent years the Museum has worked to develop collaborative projects with museums and institutions from other countries to promote educational resources and cultural awareness of the world’s material heritage.

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