South Ossetia Archeo: Alans versus Romans

3000-year-old apiary found!

3,000-year-old apiary discovered in Israel


The Bible refers to ancient Israel as the 'land flowing with milk and honey,' so it's fitting that one of its towns milked honey for all it was worth. Scientists have unearthed the remains of a large-scale beekeeping operation at a nearly 3,000-year-old Israeli site. Excavations in northern Israel at a huge earthen mound called Tel Rehov revealed the Iron Age settlement. From 2005 to 2007, workers at Tel Rehov uncovered the oldest known remnants of human-made beehives, excavation director Amihai Mazar and colleagues report. No evidence of beekeeping has emerged at any other archaeological sites in the Middle East or surrounding regions. "The discovery of an industrial apiary at Tel Rehov constitutes a unique and extraordinary discovery that revolutionizes our knowledge of this economic endeavor, particularly in ancient Israel," says Mazar, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Many scholars assume that ancient Israelis made honey from fruits such as figs and dates. Nowhere does the Bible mention beekeeping as a way to produce honey, according to Mazar. The earliest known depiction of beekeeping appears on a carving from an Egyptian temple that dates to 4,500 years ago. It shows men collecting honeycombs from cylindrical containers, pouring honey into jars and possibly separating honey from beeswax. Beehives portrayed in ancient Egyptian art resemble those found at Tel Rehov, as well as hives used today by traditional Mediterranean and Middle Eastern groups, says entomologist Gene Kritsky of the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. "Tel Rehov is so important because it contains a full apiary, demonstrating that this was a large-scale operation," Kritsky says. Mazar's team has so far uncovered 25 cylindrical containers for bees in a structure that is centrally located in the ancient city at Tel Rehov. High brick walls surrounded the apiary. Beehives sat in three parallel rows, each containing at least three tiers. Each beehive measured 80 centimeters long and about 40 centimeters wide. In the best-preserved beehives, one end contains a small hole for bees to enter and exit. A removable lid with a handle covers the other end. Chemical analyses of two Tel Rehov beehives revealed degraded beeswax residue in the containers' unfired clay walls. The researchers are now examining pollen remains and bee bodies found in charred honeycombs from inside the hives. A violent fire in ancient times caused walls surrounding the hives to collapse and destroy many of the bee containers. Radiocarbon measures of burned grain from the apiary floor and nearby structures provided an age estimate for the finds. Mazar estimates that the ancient apiary contained at least 75 and perhaps as many as 200 beehives. The facility held more than 1 million bees and had a potential annual yield of 500 kilograms of honey and 70 kilograms of beeswax, Mazar says. Only a strong central authority could have established and maintained a large apiary in the center of town, Mazar notes. The apiary apparently hosted ceremonies intended to spur honey production and ensure the operation's success. Ritual finds near the hives include a four-horned clay altar that features carved figures of two female goddesses flanking an incised tree.
Source: ScienceNews

Kuikuru hidden past revealed (New Scientist)

Amazon hides an ancient urban landscape

NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic




It could be a case of history repeating itself in the jungles of South America. Huge swathes of the Western Amazon were cleared 600 years ago, though back then it wasn't for logging, it was to make way for an urban network of towns, villages and hamlets.
For the past few decades archaeologists have been uncovering urban remains that date back to the 13th century – long before European settlers had sailed across the Atlantic and discovered the "New World".
This means that decent chunks – some 20,000 square kilometres – of the Western Amazon forest is not, strictly speaking, what could be called "virgin" forest. It is what took over after local cultures were wiped out by European settlers and imported diseases and their towns and villages were left untended.
"In 1993, I went to live with the Kuikuro people," says Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida. "After a few days, the village chief, Afukaka Kuikuro, took me out to the remains of an earthen wall."
Heckenberger soon realised that the structures which the Kuikuro held to be associated with their gods were, in fact, the remains of their ancestors' cities. He now returns to the area every year with a team of Brazilian and US colleagues to trace the extent of the pre-European settlements with a GPS transmitter in hand.
Town planning
What has emerged from this work is a digital map of two complex and dense urban clusters, right in the heart of the jungle. The clusters are connected by roads and each has a distinct central element. In one case this is a ceremonial plaza; in the other a residential plaza.
The next largest residential centres are 3 to 5 kilometres to the south-east and north-west of each centre; slightly smaller centres are between 8 km and 10 km from the centres, to the south-west and north-east.
Each of these "towns" had its own central plaza and was protected by an earthen wall. They were surrounded by smaller, non-walled residential hamlets.
The towns, villages and hamlets were interlinked by roads, the largest of which followed the direction of the sun at the mid-year solstice.
Return of the forest
Although the team have looked at the detail of just two of these urban clusters, they have found evidence of another 13, covering a total area of more than 20,000 square kilometres – equivalent to the size of New Jersey or Wales.
The researchers estimate the population of each village and town would have been between 250 and 2500, and all 15 clusters could have been home to more than 50,000 people.
What happened to these towns? Some modern Kuikuro villages still stand on original sites, and in these villages the primary, or high-ranking, houses lie south-east and north-west of the central plaza – a similar pattern to the ancient orientation.
It is likely that when European colonisers arrived in South America in the early 16th century, the indigenous population was decimated and urban clusters were abandoned.
Unlike ancient Andean civilisations, the Kuikuro and other indigenous peoples from the Amazon had little stone close at hand. They built with earth and, once they were gone, the forest reclaimed the land, leaving little trace of the once considerable urbanisation.
Altered landscape
The findings raise big questions, says Susanna Hecht of the University of California in Los Angeles.
For starters, it forces a rethink of the long-held assumption that these parts of the Amazon were virtually empty before colonisation. What's more, it shows that the large populations that did inhabit the region transformed the landscape.
"What we find is that what we think of as the primitive Amazon forest is not so primitive after all," Heckenberger told New Scientist. "European colonialism wasted huge numbers of native peoples and cleared them off the land, so that the forest returned."
What, then, did the primitive Amazon look like? That is a mystery, says Heckenberger. It is clear, though, that these large urban clusters reordered the entire landscape.
Research published in January revealed that was has long been thought of as the "original" New England landscape was in fact created by British settlers in the 17th century.

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1159769)

Photo of the day: Ripa Maiala

ETRUSCANS FOR ABYDOS

A programme is in place to protect the sacred site of Abydos, as Nevine El-Aref finds out


On the western side of the Nile, on the edge of the low desert, the ancient Upper Egyptian town of Abydos spreads on a site of over eight square kilometres. The atmosphere is agreeable, embracing magnificent monuments within a great natural environment.
As the city sacred to god Osiris where, according to legend, his head is buried, and coupled with the ancient Egyptian belief that the horizon west of Abydos was the gateway to the afterlife, Abydos was a favoured burial place for ancient Egyptians who wished to be buried near their legendary ancestor. Hence many cult structures were dedicated to Osiris and vast cemetery fields were developed there, incorporating not only the regional population but non-local people who also chose to build tombs and commemorative monuments in Abydos.
During the prehistoric and early dynastic periods, Abydos was a satellite funerary centre for the nome capital of Thinis, which is now located in the vicinity of the modern town of Gerga of Balliana on the edge of the Nile. The significance of the city then exceeded a provincial burial centre to become the burial place of the first kings of the first and second dynasties. Later on, during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, Abydos evolved into a religious centre of great importance.
The most outstanding monuments at Abydos are the Second-Dynasty funerary enclosure of King Khasekhemwi, the Kom Al-Sultan enclosure wall which was the location of the early town and the main temple dedicated to the god Osiris, and the two New Kingdom temples of Pharaoh Seti I, founder of the 19th Dynasty, and his son Ramses II. The greater part of the site remains concealed beneath the sand, a fact recognised in the Arabic name of the modern town, Al-Araba Al-Madfuna, or "the buried Araba".
The most famous of all the monuments is the well- preserved temple of Seti I, which has some of the finest reliefs of any period to be found in the Nile Valley. It has seven separate sanctuaries, dedicated to Seti I himself and to Osiris, Isis, Horus, Amun, Mut and Khonsu. Their entrances are delicately carved in bas-relief, and they still retain their original colour.
This is the temple which contains a Kings' List, a roll of gods and kings engraved in royal cartouches. More than 70 Pharaohs preceded Seti I, starting with Mena, founder of the First Dynasty. For political reasons the names of the monotheist Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Hatshepsut were not included in the list.
Several tales were told about the temple, the most interesting being that of the British archaeologist who married an Egyptian and was much respected by the locals, who called her Um Seti (mother of Seti). She would treat the temple as a sacred place, and would remove her shoes before entering. She was very devoted to the memory of the Pharaoh Seti, and believed that she had lived at his court in a previous life. She devoted her life to studying the reliefs and transcribing the texts of the temple. When she died she was buried beside her divine god-king Seti.
Local women believed they could enhance their fertility by immersing themselves in the water of what is known as the Osirian, a temple behind the temple of Seti I, which floods from time to time.
Over the decades, however, spontaneous urban and agricultural development around Abydos has affected the monuments. The city's inhabitants have encroached on the area in the vicinity of Seti I's temple. Some have cultivated the triangle in front of temple, leading to the leakage of drainage water into the temple, while others have constructed residential mud-brick and concrete houses around the temple walls and along the road leading to Ramses II's temple, which in its turn affects the scenery of the whole site.
The Cairo-Aswan highway was another threat to the archaeological site. The highway, a the mega-project for the government, was meant to strengthen domestic transport routes as a way of promoting tourism and boosting trade between the governorates; it was the ground of a major debate between three ministries: housing, agriculture and culture. The controversy was sparked when construction began on the section of the road linking Assiut to Aswan. Archaeologists from the SCA argued that the road would cause irrevocable damage to the major archaeological sites at Abydos, the primary pilgrimage destination for ancient Egyptians, through which it runs. According to Sabri Abdel-Aziz, who heads the SCA's Ancient Egypt Department, the Temple of Osiris, the royal cemetery of the first and second dynasties, the ramp of Senusert III's chapel and his funerary complex, as well as the ramp of Ahmos's Pyramid, and the famous Seti I Temple with its list of Egypt's ancient kings and queens, would all be in danger of destruction.
As a result, two committees -- comprising representatives from the ministries of culture, housing and agriculture, as well as Sohag governorate and transport authorities -- inspected the section of the road in question in an attempt to revise the route and reach a compromise.
Four suggestions were made. The first proposed detouring the route towards the agricultural land east of the archaeological site, thereby destroying 65 feddans of Sohag's most fertile land. The second would link the road via the desert behind the Abydos mountains at an additional cost of LE150 million.
The remaining two suggestions involved paving the area parallel to the Qasr canal, resulting in a 25-kilometre longer route that could end up necessitating the demolition of a number of rural houses, and, finally, an alternate route through an agricultural area, as well as an archaeological zone which must first be excavated prior to construction.
During the debate, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said his ministry would not stand in the way of development projects meant to benefit the general public. However, he also said, the ministry was very serious about preventing the destruction of monuments. He said no new construction would be taking place until the newly-organised ministerial committee made its final decision. For his part, SCA Secretary- General Zahi Hawass suggested that the SCA was perfectly willing to help construct the proposed detours if that meant preserving Egypt's heritage.
After several meetings and inspection tours, the controversial parties agreed on the rerouting of the road and that the LE15 million which would be used for recompensing the residents would be provided by the three ministries concerned -- each would pay LE5 million. So far the SCA has paid three million, and when the construction of the new houses starts it will pay the rest.
The problem of water in Abydos is becoming serious. Abdel-Aziz told Al-Ahram Weekly that he counted three direct causes; namely the cultivation around the temple zone, the lack of a proper drainage system in the shanty housing areas near both temples, and the heightened level of the Nile in July and August, which in its turn augmented the level of water inside the Osirian.
Now, he continued, in collaboration with the Subterranean Water Research Centre and the Tarek Wali engineering bureau, the SCA was carrying out a comprehensive project to reduce the rate of subterranean water inside the Osirian. The triangle cultivated in front of the Seti I Temple had also been removed in an attempt to return it to its original feature.
"Abydos is archaeologically rich, and even more important historically than Giza and Luxor," Hawass said. "It was also a sacred pilgrimage site for Osiris, and almost every king in Ancient Egypt built a cenotaph or a chapel dedicated to the god of the afterlife." He said an LE20 million development project was now under implementation in order to end the problems Abydos is suffering from and to develop the whole site in a way that matches its archaeological and historical importance. According to the project, which will be implemented over the next six years, Abydos will regain its original scenic position.
In an attempt to protect the archaeological site of Abydos from any further encroachment, a wall will surround it and the 92 houses located along the road between both temples will be demolished. Residents will be moved to other houses now under construction by the Ministry of Housing in a nearby area after it has been archaeologically investigated. A high-tech visitor centre will be set up un front of the temple of Seti I, replacing the cultivated triangle, along with a cafeteria and a bookshop. "A sound and light show for the archaeological sites of Abydos is now under study as another tourist attraction," Hawass says.

R.Boswell: Thule did not scare Vikings

Thule did not scare Vikings out of Newfoundland, research says



Canwest News Service


It's the oldest whodunit in Canadian history, and new research has conclusively ruled out one of the suspect aboriginal groups behind the retreat of would-be Viking colonists from the New World.
A scientific re-dating of the eastward migration of the Thule - ancestors of modern-day Inuit - has pegged their push across Canada's polar frontier to no earlier than 1200 AD. That's at least 150 years after Norse voyagers from Greenland are believed to have abandoned their short-lived, 11th-century settlement at the northern tip of Newfoundland following hostile encounters there, and in Labrador, with native inhabitants they called Skraelings.
Because of their relatively late arrival in northern Canada - originally set by experts at about 1000 AD - the Thule (pronounced "too-ley") have always been outside contenders in the long-running quest to identify the people who scared the Vikings out of Canada.
An earlier paleo-Eskimo culture called the Dorset - which was eventually overrun and extinguished by the eastward-migrating Thule - and Indian nations such as Newfoundland's extinct Beothuks and the ancestral Innu of Labrador, remain suspects in this coldest of Canadian cold cases.
Thule archeological sites, while spread widely across the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, have never been found as far south as Newfoundland. But lingering uncertainty about the timing of the Thule migration, the precise boundaries of their movements and the identity of the Skraelings who clashed with the Norse have kept the Thule as long shots on the list of suspects.
Now, a study by Canadian archeologists Max Friesen and Charles Arnold - published last month in the scholarly journal American Antiquity - argues that their re-dating of two sites in the western Arctic proves the Thule didn't reach Canada from their Alaskan homelands until after 1200.
"A round figure of A.D. 1000 has often been assumed for the beginning of the migration," Friesen and Arnold write. "We believe that the most parsimonious interpretation is that the Thule migration happened in the 13th rather than the 11th century A.D."
This 200-year difference has "major implications," the authors argue, for assessing "the nature of Thule interaction with Dorset and Norse peoples in the East."
Friesen, an anthropology professor at the University of Toronto, told Canwest News Service: "Although I'm normally pretty cautious about these things, I do think that we can definitively rule out the Thule as being those Skraelings . . . As far as we can tell, Thule never made it onto the island of Newfoundland."
That still leaves unsolved a monumental mystery from the dawn of Canadian history, and few solid clues about what happened.
It is known that Viking voyagers reached Canadian shores about 1,000 years ago. A site unearthed in the 1960s at L'Anse aux Meadows, N.L., proved that Norse settlers built sod houses and tried to create an offshoot of their Greenland and Iceland colonies.
The Newfoundland site is almost certainly the legendary place called Vinland that is described in the literary sagas of medieval Iceland. According to oral tradition that was eventually set down in writing in the 13th century, Vinland was a relative paradise of summer greenery and mild winters for Norse visitors used to harsher conditions back home.
Led by Leif Eiriksson, the Vikings envisioned a farming community and had even found vines with what they believed were grapes - thus Vinland - during their Canadian explorations.
But they also found unidentified tribes of natives who were hostile toward them, and the Vikings abandoned Vinland after a few years, sailing home for the safer shores of Greenland.
It's believed the Norse did return to Canada in subsequent centuries. Archeologists have found evidence of extensive interactions and even trading relationships between the Norse and both Dorset and Thule until about 1400, when the modern Inuit culture began taking shape in the Arctic ahead of exploratory visits to North America by the English, French and Portuguese.

la femme de volterra / the volterra woman / la donna di volterra / Letizia casta / Laetitia Casta

Ansa: "Russian" Etruscan Glories on show

Cortona exhibit features only bronze funerary urn ever found


(ANSA) - Some of the finest masterpieces of Etruscan art are returning to Italy from Russia's Hermitage museum for a show starting next month in the heartland of the ancient civilisation.The 30 pieces include the only Etruscan bronze funerary urn ever found.The 4th-century BC piece, found near Perugia in 1842, shows a magnificent decoration of a beautiful, proud youth reclining on an Etruscan drinking couch or 'kline'.''This is an exciting show and the Hermitage is proud to give Italians a chance to see these magnificent pieces,'' said Anna Trofimova, head of the Hermitage's antiquities collections.Trofimova selected the pieces with experts from the Etruscan Academy Museum (MAEC) in the southern Tuscan town of Cortona. The urn and many of its companion pieces were bought by Tsar Alexander II in 1861.'Etruscan Masterpieces from the Hermitage' runs at the MAEC from September 7 to January 6, 2009.The MAEC is opening seven new rooms for the occasion and also starting a major new archaeological project with the Hermitage Foundation Italy to uncover more of the ancient glory dotted around the city.The Cortona museum boasts one of Italy's most interesting Etruscan collections including one of the longest inscriptions in Etruscan, which is still largely undeciphered.A recent study suggested it might have been an early form of Hungarian.The Etruscans are believed to have formed the first advanced civilisation in Italy, based in an area called Etruria, corresponding largely to present-day Tuscany, Umbria and northern Lazio.By the sixth century BC they had become the dominant force in central Italy, but repeated attacks from Gauls and Syracusans later forced them into an alliance with the embryonic Roman state, which gradually absorbed Etruscan civilization.Although the Etruscans had the upper hand in the early days and supplied Rome with the last three of its first seven kings including the famous Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud), the archaeological record of their once sweeping presence in central Italy is scanty compared with that of other civilisations.Some historians have posited that the Romans actively tried to wipe out the traces of their predecessors, whose sensual and fun-loving approach to life contrasted with the spartan, austere and rigidly patriarchal life of the early Roman republic.Most of what we know about their civilisation is based on archaeological finds, given the problems in unlocking the secrets of their language. photo: an Etruscan tomb at Cerveteri

ETRUSCANS FOR TIBET

Paleoglot: Etruscan dictionary Translation Project

http://paleoglot.blogspot.com/2007/11/etruscan-dictionary-project-updates.html

El Universal (MEXICO): La Magia de la Etruria

Rebasa magia de la Toscana su cultura, vinos y paisajes





La región situada en el centro de Italia figura en la alta cocina mundial
El sabor de la Toscana, región situada en el centro de Italia, va más allá de la pasta y la pizza, también se puede disfrutar en los productos de la tierra, sobrios y sencillos, pero llenos de sabor y tradición, que poco a poco se han ido insertando en la alta cocina internacional.
Su variedad gastronómica no tiene igual y va desde los quesos, legumbres, pan, vino y carne hasta sus exquisitas sopas de verduras, como la famosa "minestrone" o la "ribolita" , según destaca el artículo "La Toscana, el sabor de la tradición" , publicado en la edición de agosto de la revista "Playboy" .
Para el verano se recomienda al visitante probar la "panzarella" , una especie de sopa fría parecida al "gazpacho" , hecha con pan empapado de agua, acompañado de tomate, cebolla y, en ocasiones anchoas, pero siempre aderezada con albahaca y aceite de oliva.
La capital toscana, enclavada en el centro de la fértil cuenca del río Arno, se distingue principalmente por sus carnes, en especial, la "bistecca" , un corte de solomillo de ternera con hueso, que se cocina a la brasa y se adereza con romero y aceite de oliva virgen.
Otro platillo famoso es la "tagliata di manzo" , que es lomo de ternera asado que se puede comer frío, en finas láminas aliñadas con pimienta, aceite y vinagre balsámico de Módena (lugar donde nació el famoso tenor Luciano Pavarotti) .
La "trippa" (menudos o callos de ternera) que se puede cocinar de muchas formas, incluso con salsa de tomate u horneada al modo de la pasta.
La tierra del Chianti, que incluye a la ciudad de Siena, destino turístico de gran interés para el viajero, se caracteriza en lo gastronómico por sus "cantuccini" , "panforte ricarrelli" o "panpepato" , dulces de almendras, pasas y especias, que son clásicos dulces del Renacimiento.
En Siena son muy comunes los platos de raíces campesinas, elaborados con frutos de la naturaleza, desde la sopa de ranas (con ramas de albahaca) hasta las especialidades a base de setas, especialmente el famoso hongo "fungi porcini" o "boletus" , que se degusta acompañado de pasta o de relleno de hojaldre.
Los quesos de la región, hechos a base de leche de oveja o de cabra, son también muy famosos, como el de "Pienza" .
Y ni qué decir de los famosos vinos de la comarca del Chianti, que la han dado fama internacional a uno de los más conocidos en el mundo.
Otros vinos blancos sobresalientes son: el "Brunello di Montalcino" , de la provincia de Siena; el "Vernaccia di San Giminiano" y desde luego el "vin santo" , que es un vino dulce, ligeramente ahumado por su prolongado añejamiento en barricas, con el que se esparcen los variados postres de la región.
También se elabora una gran variedad de embutidos, muchos a la manera tradicional, como el "salame finocchiona" , un guiso muy sabroso que se elabora con semillas de hinojo a base de la carne de lomo de cerdo.
La Val di Chiana es una zona de gran tradición, donde desde tiempo de los etruscos se elaboran los más selectos embutidos, triturando la carne a cuchillo.
Para los amantes de los pescados y los mariscos, los mejores lugares son: Pisa, con su torre inclinada, y Livorno, segunda ciudad toscana en importancia que tiene 160 mil habitantes frente a los 370 mil de Florencia.
El célebre "cacciuco" , sabrosa caldereta de pescados y mariscos, con un fondo de pan tostado con ajo y aceite de oliva, se guisa en el archipiélago de las islas de Elba, La Versilia y el Argentario.
La trufa blanca en Pisa y las ensaladas de langosta de la isla de Elba, son para aquellos paladares exigentes, aunque los más accesibles en precios son las anguilas o el bacalao.
En la comarca más sureña y menos explorada turísticamente de la Toscana, la comarca de Maremma, los amantes de los platos de caza encontrarán los platillos de jabalí, libre y corzo, adobados con chianti y hierbas aromáticas.
En dicha localidad también es famosa la "acquacotta" (agua cocida) , que nació en tiempos de necesidad de llevarse algo caliente a la boca y se ha convertido en una exquisita sopa con agua, sal, un poco de aceite, verduras de temporadas, huevos o setas y una pizca de queso de oveja.
Hay también una infinita variedad de pasta fresca o seca, biológicas o con verduras, negras (con tinta de calamar o sepia) o rellenas.
Por último, cabe destacar las salsas en conserva que guardan toda la tradición toscana y que los viajeros siempre se podrán llevar consigo.
mzr

CULANS

SELVANS

UNI

FUFLUN

TURMS

TINIA

photo of the day: Bannockburn

Les Etrusques a Gèneve ; "LE PROFANE ET LE DIVIN"

(source:24 Heures)


Parcours initiatique


EXPOSITION23:21 Fascinante plongée au fond des âges au Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève qui, entre «Le profane et le divin», présente 250 fleurons des arts de l'antiquité du musée Barbier-Mueller.


«La plus belle collection privée d'arts africain et océanien au monde», selon le musée Jacquemart-André, fête ses 100 ans dans le cadre prestigieux de son hôtel particulier du boulevard Haussmann, où sont rassemblés ses 100 chefs-d'oeuvre les plus rares. Pendant ce temps, non seulement les musées Barbier-Mueller de Genève et Barcelone présentent des pièces choisies de la collection et des expositions temporaires («Art du métal en Afrique» à Genève jusqu'au 16 novembre et «Les Caraïbes avant Colomb» à Barcelone jusqu'au 15 octobre), mais le Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève propose un somptueux parcours initiatique entre «Le profane et le divin» balisé par quelque 250 fleurons des arts de l'Antiquité de la collection Barbier-Mueller, dont bon nombre n'avaient encore jamais été montrés au public.
C'est dire l'époustouflante richesse et la formidable diversité de la collection initiée par le Soleurois Josef Mueller il y a un siècle quand, âgé de 20 ans, il achète sa première oeuvre: un tableau du peintre Cuno Amiet. Bientôt sa curiosité s'affûte, son regard s'élargit et il se prend aussi de passion, dès 1920, pour les arts tribaux. Contaminé à son tour depuis la fin des années 1950, son gendre Jean-Paul Barbier-Mueller donne à la collection l'ampleur exceptionnelle qu'on lui connaît aujourd'hui.
Dans la nuit des temps
L'exposition genevoise invite à une plongée dans la nuit des temps, entre le néolithique et la période romaine. A la fois spectaculaire et intimiste, elle s'arpente dans une pénombre théâtralisée où chaque objet surgit de l'ombre comme une apparition et où, bien que traversant à grandes enjambées les âges et la géographie, l'ensemble semble disposé pour quelque cérémonie rituelle. Mais dans son éclectisme de haut vol, la balade est avant tout d'ordre esthétique, réservant l'essentiel de son appareil scientifique au monumental catalogue qui la prolonge et offrant ses pièces, ponctuées d'explications et d'articulations succinctes, à la pure délectation du promeneur.
Celui-ci les découvre en trois chapitres: les «idoles» néolithiques, les portraits de l'Antiquité gréco-romaine et un parcours culturel qui va des Etrusques à la civilisation vietnamienne du Dông Son en passant par la Mésopotamie et les peuples des steppes eurasiennes.
Et voici une fascinante série de petites idoles en marbre des Cyclades aux lignes très pures, presque abstraites; une tête féminine miniature d'Egypte en calcédoine luminescente; une vielle patricienne romaine aux traits affaissés saisissante de vérité à côté d'une jeune déesse au visage pur et idéalisé selon les canons de beauté grecs; des plaques de ceintures scythes en bronze finement ornées de motifs animaliers; un masque sumérien aux yeux exorbités; une garniture de fourreau chinois orné d'oiseaux; une applique en or en forme de bouquetin du Kurdistan iranien, ou cette tête en bronze de quelque demi-dieu romain à la parfaite beauté.
«Le profane et le divin. Arts de l'antiquité. Fleurons du musée Barbier-Mueller»: Genève, Musée d'art et d'histoire jusqu'au 30 août, ma-di 10 h-17 h. 022 418 26 00.