From the Economist:
Strutting on the stageFrom ArtDaily:
Jul 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition
“Hadrian: Empire and Conflict” will be at the British Museum from July 24th until October 26th
A MASSIVE stone head of the Emperor Hadrian is the first exhibit a visitor sees in the British Museum’s exploration of “the life, love and legacy of Rome’s most enigmatic Emperor”. He is bearded with carefully coiffed curly hair, and that unmistakable deep diagonal crease in the earlobes which helps identify authentic ancient portraits of Hadrian. The head was discovered only last August in Sagalassos in south-west Turkey, and it has never been seen in public before. The decision to allow it to leave the storehouse in the local museum was taken at cabinet level in Ankara after detailed negotiations between Neil MacGregor, the British Museum’s director, and Turkey’s ambassador to London. It is a brilliant coup de théâtre.
This exhibition is not linked to an anniversary. The closest it gets to a relevant contemporary reference is to emphasise that one of Hadrian’s first acts on becoming Emperor in 117AD was to withdraw Rome’s army from Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Mr MacGregor says the exhibition is one of a series exploring great rulers who shaped our world.
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The British Museum Presents Hadrian: Empire and Conflict Exhibition in LondonBackground here.
LONDON.-The British Museum presents Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, on view through October 26, 2008. The Roman Emperor Hadrian (117 to 138AD) is best known for his passion for Greek culture, interest in architecture, his love for Antinous, and of course the eponymous wall he built between England and Scotland, then Caledonia. This exhibition, supported by BP, will look beyond this established image and offer new perspectives on his life and legacy, exploring the sharp contradictions of his personality and his role as a ruthless military commander. Incorporating recent scholarship and the latest spectacular archaeological discoveries, the exhibition will feature over 180 objects from 28 lenders from Italy to Georgia, from Israel to Newcastle. Loans of dramatic sculpture, exquisite bronzes and architectural fragments will be brought together and displayed for the first time in the UK, alongside famous objects from the Museum’s own collection such as the iconic bronze head of Hadrian and the Vindolanda tablets. This exhibition will be held in the Round Reading Room, often compared to one of Hadrian’s architectural masterpieces, the Pantheon in Rome.
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Hadrian was a man of great contradiction in both his personality and reign: a military man and homosexual, he combined ruthless suppression of dissent with cultural tolerance. He reacted with great ferocity against the Jewish Revolt in 132 AD (examples of poignant objects belonging to Jewish rebels hiding in caves near Jerusalem will be included in the exhibition), but he was also a dedicated philhellene, passionate about Greek culture. He took a young Greek male lover, Antinous, who accompanied him on his travels around the empire. In AD 130, Antinous drowned in mysterious circumstances in Egypt. Consumed by grief, Hadrian founded a new city, Antinoupolis, close to the spot where he died and had Antinous declared a god, linked to the Egyptian deity Osiris. A cult of Antinous-Osiris sprang up resulting in statues, busts and silverware featuring the image of the newly deified youth.
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