Tutankhamun and the terracotta army

James, N.

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00096551

Cited by 3 publications

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“…pleasure too to record the attentiveness of the museum's press officers throughout the 'world rulers' programme. First Emperor: the museum under-estimated attendance by 45 per cent, not 90 (James 2008a: 201)mea culpa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like most treatments of the Aztecs -including London's previous exhibition about them, Aztecs, at the Royal Academy (James 2003) -Moctezuma emphasised their vivid cosmographic and religious symbolism; and, like nearly all others, Moctezuma failed to explain it fully. The symbols and iconography were ancient and widely familiar at the time -especially the dualism of the living and the dead and of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake -but the intensity with which the Aztecs (Mexica) used them was probably peculiar to their capital city.…”

Section: Moctezumamentioning

confidence: 97%

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Great Men in the jungle of nations

James

2010

Antiquity

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Moctezuma, Aztec ruler was the last of four big temporary exhibitions about ‘world rulers’ that the British Museum has put on in the past three years. Moctezuma was the king who received Cortés and the Conquistadores in 1519 and was killed the next year in their custody. The previous three exhibitions were on the First Emperor of China, the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, and Shah ‘Abbas, respectively. Hadrian and The First Emperor were archaeological (James 2008a, 2008c). So was Moctezuma. It ran from September 2009 to January 2010.Kingship is evidently in vogue among London’s galleries. During The First Emperor’s showing, Tutankhamun entertained on the other side of the river (James 2008b); and the Victoria & Albert Museum mounted Maharaja during Moctezuma’s run. There are good reasons for thinking about kings in any society, regardless of political constitution, because, in their coronations, their deeds and their deaths or funerals, they are ‘collective representations’. Whether as heroes or as scapegoats, democracies tend to promote ‘celebrities’ by the same token and, as well as governing, perhaps monarchs, ancient or contemporary, served and serve that function too. Historians, sociologists and anthropologists have tackled these themes through comparison and so have archaeologists, with epigraphy, iconography and the excavation of palaces and tombs (Blanton et al. 1996; Quigley 2005).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Moctezumamentioning

confidence: 97%

Great Men in the jungle of nations

James

2010

Antiquity

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“…Hadrian gave some sense of the difficulty for Rome: of the emperor's early concession to the citizens of Rome, of war in the provinces, and of the monarchical succession. The First Emperor gave no hint about how flimsy the Qin achievement was -to the contrary (James 2008). Nor, for Hadrian, was it convincing to imply that the cult of Antinous was some revealing peccadillo: it was likelier to have been statecraft (Opper 2008: 186-90).…”

Section: Did It Work?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can a museum explain imperialism?

James

2008

Antiquity

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Empires produced some of the ancient world's grandest monuments. No doubt that helps to account for successive major exhibitions recently mounted at the British Museum.The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Armyclosed in April 2008, having drawn more visitors than any other sinceTreasures of Tutankhamunin 1972 (British Museum 2008: 66). There followed, from July to October, impressive and intriguing pieces on Hadrian, the Roman Emperor of the second century AD. The attention to large political systems is timely (James 2008: 201). Twenty-five years ago, Donald Horne (1984: 252) went so far as to declare that 'in the popularisations … of the huge storehouse of … artifacts … that are such an extraordinary feature of our age. … we may find the only real potential for giving substance to human liberation'. Is this feasible in practice; and, if so, is a state museum with business sponsorship a likely place to find such enlightenment? Studying the archaeology inHadrian, withThe First Emperoras a foil, enabled us to assess these questions.

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Terra-cotta Conquest: The First Emperor's Clay Army's Blockbuster Tour of the World

Fiskesjö¹

2015

Verge: Studies in Global Asias

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Tutankhamun and the terracotta army

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Great Men in the jungle of nations

Great Men in the jungle of nations

Can a museum explain imperialism?

Terra-cotta Conquest: The First Emperor's Clay Army's Blockbuster Tour of the World

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