Met Museum to Display DESIGN FOR ETERNITY Exhibit, 10/26
From the first millennium B.C. until the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, artists from the ancient Americas created small-scale architectural models to be placed in the tombs of important individuals. These works in stone, ceramic, wood, and metal range from highly abstracted, minimalist representations of temples and houses to elaborate architectural complexes populated with figures. These miniature structures were critical components in funerary practice and beliefs about an afterlife, and they convey a rich sense of ancient ritual and as well as the daily lives of the Aztecs, the Incas, and their predecessors. Opening October 26 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas-the first of its kind in the United States-will shed light on the role of these objects in mediating relationships between the living, the dead, and the divine. It will also provide a rare look at ancient American architecture, much of which did not survive to the present day. Some 30 remarkable loans from museums in the United States and Peru will join works from the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum, which is particularly rich in this material.
The exhibition is made possible by The Pearson-Rappaport Foundation in honor of Joanne Pearson. Additional support provided by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Arranged chronologically within a geographical framework, the exhibition will feature groupings of works from ancient Mesoamerican and Andean cultures. While scant written documentation concerning how the artifacts were used has survived, Maya hieroglyphs call them "god houses" or "sleeping places for the gods." Indeed, many of the artifacts combine a building shape with that of a vessel, and some of these doubled as musical instruments. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be a spectacular wooden model that depicts part of a pre-Inca palace at Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimú Empire. (The Chimú people were defeated by the Inca in the 15th century.) Figurines that represent musicians, beer servers, and others are sewn to the cloth base; three larger figures, which are not secured to the model, represent mummies, one male and two female. The scene may be an early representation of funerary practices that later became common among the Inca, who did not bury their royal dead. This important work-on loan from Peru-was excavated 20 years ago and dates from 1440-1665. It has never been on view in the United States.Videos