On the cover: Bronze head of an Oba from Benin.
Collection Object Number: AF2064B
By: Temple Fay
In general we know comparatively little about the life history and personal traits of ancient worthies. The evidence for Menander comes from Greek of Latin writings or from inscriptions and is conveniently assembled near the beginning of the second volume of Koerte’s edition of Menander. The Suda (Suidas), a tenth-century work of reference, informs us […]
By: David Crownover
Art of any period or time has been seen to pass through a life cycle: dynamic in youth, overcome by nature in middle age, philosophic in decline. Jacques Lipchitz, a sculptor, collector, and connoisseur, sees this theory in a new light. He contends that contemporary art is the beginning of a new cycle; that the […]
Hasanlu, Iran The members of the expedition to Hasanlu, under the leadership of Robert H. Dyson, Jr., arrived in Iran early in June. This year the Metropolitan Museum of Art is sponsoring the dig along with the Iranian Government and the University Museum. The Metropolitan’s representative is De. Vaughn E. Crawford who is acting as […]
By: Temple Fay, M.D. and Jack L. Benson and L. Arnold Post
Preface Undoubtedly the most controversial portrait surviving from antiquity is one which exists in many copies and which has most often been identified as either Menander or Vergil, although speculation has ranged more widely than that. It may well be that various scholars who have accepted one or the other identification have satisfied themselves on […]
By: William R. Coe
At this Maya site in northern tropical Guatemala the fourth season of field work under the direction of Edwin M. Shook continues. The Museum’s objectives, undertaken in collaboration with the Guatemala Government, are gradually being realized. Our initial difficulties with a dependable water supply have been solved. Excavations, laboratory work, reconstruction and consolidation, analysis of […]
By: Kenneth D. Matthews, Jr.
Between 1931 and 1933 workmen under the direction of Jotham Johnson labored for the University Museum at a Roman site not far north of the Bay of Naples. The ancient Romans knew the town as Minturnae and many entered its gates as transient guests en route to resorts, further south, for the heavily traveled Via […]
By: Margaret Plass
An evaluation based on discussions with William Fagg, Deputy Keeper of Ethnography in the British Museum. The art of Benin is the most widely known of all forms of “primitive” art, yet it is also the least typical. It is, moreover, the most highly valued, and indeed, as to a great part of its output, […]
By: Robert Ackerman
Far to the north in the region of the Bering Straits, Russian and American archaeologists working independently of each other are trying to reconstruct the culture history of the most northerly hunters of the world, the Eskimo. Recent information from the excavations in the East Cape region of Siberia and the coast to the south […]
By: Alfred Kidder, II
I first became aware of the archaeological visitors (we called them tourists), in the early twenties, when our family used to spend the summer at the ruins of the old Pueblo of Pecos, about thirty-five miles east of Santa Fe. My father was then engaged in a long-term program of excavation on the remains of […]
By: Anonymous
The making of masks is widespread both as to place and time. Their uses are varied, ranging from religious ceremonial for both the living and the dead, to theatrical characterization, to those worn simply for fun. Many are highly stylized, others grotesque, and still others portraits, not necessarily of individuals but of a group. The […]