A tour of the country of Pelops with a guide of ancient coins “at the Archaeological Museum of Tegea (Alea Tegeas) and in Building B of the Stasinopouleio Cultural Center (Tegea Stadium).
The Ephorate of Antiquities of Arcadiathe Benaki Museum, the Public Benefit Foundation for Social & Cultural Work (KIKPE) and the Public Benefit Foundation Michael N. Stasinopoulos – VIOHALCO organize an exhibition entitled “Memory and imprint. A tour of the country of Pelops with a guide” Alea Tegeas) and in Building B of the Stasinopouleio Cultural Center (Tegea Stadium).
This is the first periodical exhibition hosted at the Tegea Archaeological Museum, which won international honors in 2016 as one of the “European museums of the year”. The exhibition will last from June 8 until November 30, 2022 at the Archaeological Museum of Tegea and until September 30, 2022 at the Stasinopouleio Cultural Center.
The exhibition at the Archaeological Museum of Tegea includes 71 exhibits organized around two thematic axes and in five sections.
Targeted narratives
• Myth and memory. The genesis of the local mythical and historical tradition is traced. The goddess Athena who gives a jellyfish of Medusa to Kipheas and Steropis, the Tegeat hero Telephos, son of Hercules and Avgi, who is fed by a deer. Artemis, the goddess of hunting, and Callisto, the mother of Arkadas. Pelops.
• Collective memory in the Peloponnese beyond the borders of cities. The two great efforts of organizing supra-local political formations in the Peloponnese, the Common of the Arcadians and the Achaean Confederation, are presented.
• Recalling memory: the Peloponnese in imperial times. It highlights how the ruling class continues to project the ancient cleos of each city, harmonizing with the demands of imperial power. An eloquent example is a coinage of Corinth with the burial monument of the partner Laidos or a cut in the monetary production of Mantineia issued in the name of Antinous.
• The end of one era and the beginning of another. Attaching the honorary inscription for the high Roufos – who seems to have resisted the Gothic invaders of the 4th c. A.D. with the testimony of coins illuminates less known aspects of a world in transition.
Conversations
Fourteen selected sculptures of the Museum’s permanent exhibition are selected with seventeen coins bearing similar or related iconographic types. The resemblance of the heroic figure in the cutting of Tegea with the figure of Echemos, the king of Tegea, in relief is impressive. The proximity of the figure that connects the Dioscuri of a cut of Gythio with those of a Tegeat relief, or the head of Asclepius on a coin of Epidaurus with the sculpted head of the doctor god, is moving.
The exhibition at the Stasinopouleio Cultural Center organizes the supervisory and documentary material in three narrative sections: The spirit of the place in the Peloponnese, Peloponnesian memories beyond the Peloponnese, Arcadia as a utopia through the centuries. The exhibition highlights the poetic image of Arcadia over time as a utopia, as a place of return to nature and innocence, in a kind of lost paradise.
The two spaces of the exhibition are bridged by two identical, exquisite art, bronze medals of the 19th century, relief copies of the famous painting by Nicolas Poussin Et in Arcadia ego. The curator of the exhibition is Dr. Anna Vasilikis Karapanagiotou, Director of the National Archaeological Museum and for a number of years head of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Arcadia, and Giannis Stogias, archaeologist – numismatist, Head – Researcher of the Numismatic Collection KIKPE.
During the exhibition, presentations for the general public will be made by scientific collaborators of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Arcadia and KIKPE. The dates and times will be announced on the websites of the Benaki Museum, the KIKPE and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Arcadia.
The exhibition is accompanied by a scientific catalog that will be available through the co-organizers.
