Exhibition 'First Kings of Europe' on tour in North America

-

 For the first time in North America, Macedonian archaeological artifacts will be exhibited at the international exhibition “The First Kings of Europe”, presenting artistic excellence in the field of social and religious forms characteristic of various stages of prehistory.

The exhibition The First Kings of Europe is the result of the initiative of the Field Museum from Chicago and cooperation with the Institute and Museum - Bitola, the Gevgelija Museum and the Institute and Museum - Prilep.

The national coordinator of the exhibition is Goce Naumov, who made a selection of several Neolithic, Neolithic and Iron Age objects found at the Vrbjanska Chuka, Shuplevec and Milci sites.

These objects, along with hundreds of other artifacts from 23 Balkan museums, show the gradual social development of prehistoric communities that gradually transformed from egalitarian tribal organizations in the Neolithic to the first European kingdoms in the Balkan Iron Age.

– The exhibition is initiated by the Field Museum in Chicago, which together with the Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian Institute is one of the three largest cultural heritage museums in the United States and shows several sensational exhibitions every year. Another such exhibition (The First Kings of Europe) was included in their program and focused on the significant role of the Balkans in the formation of the first agricultural, metallurgical and royal societies in Europe.

It is not for nothing that the exhibition refers to the Balkans as a place where new economic phenomena were born in prehistory and their own reflection in material culture, especially in rituals, is expressed. In this sense, Macedonia also has an important role as an important part of this area in which these economic and ritual phenomena emerge particularly early. Therefore, I was particularly honored to be invited by the Field Museum in Chicago in 2018 to be the national coordinator of this extraordinary and complex exhibition - says archaeologist and researcher Goce Naumov.

Negotiations and preparations for the exhibition began in 2018 when a team from the Field Museum was in Skopje and the direction of the exhibition was determined. A phase of elaboration of the thematic units and selection of prehistoric objects followed, which ran in parallel with the preparation of the text part for the anthology and catalogue, which are accompanying parts of the exhibition.

– Three Macedonian museums are included in the exhibition, joining 23 from other (Balkan) countries to form the incredible group of museums exhibiting in such a large number for the first time in North America. Several representatives of institutions have been involved in the preparation of the exhibition over the years, including director Meri Stojanova and curator Jasmina Gulevska from the Institute and Museum - Bitola, director and advisor Boban Husenovski from the Gevgelija Museum, directors Gorancho Cvetkoski and Blagoja Atanasoski and curator Aleksandar Mitkoski from the Institute and Museum – Prilep, and directors Arijan Arslanaj, Aco Kostov and Eleonora Petrova Mitevska together with Biljana Jovanova and Zlatko Nachevski from the Administration for Cultural Heritage Protection.

My task was to lay the scientific foundations of the Macedonian part of the exhibition, select the objects and coordinate the Macedonian and American institutions in the realization of this complex, but particularly significant exhibition on a world scale – explained Naumov.

The Field Museum of Chicago is organizing the exhibition “The First Kings of Europe” in the form of a tour, which will present archaeological objects from Macedonia and the Balkans in several museums in New York, Chicago and Gatineau-Ottawa from 2022 to 2024. This world's largest Balkan Prehistory exhibition is expected to attract around a million visitors and allow many to see some of the Balkans' most representative Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age artifacts.

The exhibition tour begins on September 21, 2022 at the Institute of Ancient Studies in New York and then continues to the Field Museum in Chicago (2023) and the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau-Ottawa (2024).

Accompanying the exhibition is an excellent collection edited by authors Attila Gyucha and William Parkinson and published by the prestigious publishing house of the Cotsen Archaeological Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.


FIRST KINGS OF EUROPE

Follow the paths of ancient rulers, kings, and queens as they rose to power.

Drawing from the collections of more than two dozen museums and archaeological institutes in the Balkan Peninsula of Europe, First Kings of Europe explores how a small number of individuals established tremendous power and influence over others. 

Starting their journey 8,000 years ago during the Neolithic Period and ending 2,500 years ago in the world of Iron Age kings, visitors will encounter archaeological finds that have never been shown in North America. Weapons, jewelry, and tools tell the story of how individuals gained power and influence by amassing wealth and controlling trade, technology, rituals, and warfare.

Popular posts from this blog

History: Macedonia was never a part of the ancient Hellenic city-states

-
Image
One of the steps in the Scientific Method of Investigation is the publication of your obtained results. This is done, so that others by repeating the same experiment using same methodology may independently arrive to the same conclusion and verify whether it is true what you have accomplished with your own hypothesis. Once many independent laboratories—through their scientific research—confirm your results, then, the hypothesis that you have proposed becomes accepted and your findings acknowledged.  I have said before, and I stand by my assertions that: (a) Macedonia was never a part of any ancient Greek city-state, nor were the ancient Macedonians ever considered by the ancient Greeks or by themselves, to be Greek. (b) Macedonia was never a member of any Hellenic League. Macedonia was not a member of the Greek Amphictyonic League either. Fact is that membership into these leagues was reserved for Hellenes only. And since Macedonians were not considered Hellenes, they were n
Read more

Jewish Encyclopedia - Kittim and Javan was associated with Macedonia

-
Image
MACEDONIA By: Richard Gottheil, Samuel Krauss Country of southeastern Europe; now a part of the Turkish empire. It is the native country of Alexander the Great, who is, therefore, called "Alexander the Macedonian" in rabbinical writings . In Dan. xi. 30 the Macedonians are mentioned under the name "Kittim" (R. V.), and Eusebius and the Hebrew Josephus or Gorionides (Knobel, "Völkertafel, " p. 103) use the same designation .  In the apocalyptic literature this kingdom is known as the "fourth beast" (Dan. vii. 7). The First Book of the Maccabees, which originally was written in Hebrew, also uses the word "Kittim" for Macedonians , and mentions Philip and Alexander (i. 1), as well as Philip III. and his illegitimate son Perseus (viii. 5), as kings of the Macedonians. Since the Greek Syrians style themselves "successors of Alexander," these Syrians also are called "Macedonians" (II Macc. viii. 20). The
Read more

Letters by Greek soldiers about the massacres in Aegean Macedonia - 1913

-
Image
The Hellenic army is burning all slavophonic villages and kills all slavophones it captures! It can be seen from the letters by Greek soldiers sent from the front the horror that the Macedonian population in the towns and villages under Greek occupation faced. The bloody collection of about hundred letters should have been delivered to the addresses through the Greek Army’s military post office, but after it was captured by the Bulgarian Army in Razlog on 14 July 1913, the letters were made public. It is a fearsome collection of authentic testimonies that were taken to the State Archives in Sofia in 1913, as Ljubomir Miletic PhD claims. In those letters, the Greek soldiers bragged to their relatives and friends that they hadn’t left a single Slavophone alive wherever they went, that they had raped all the Slavic Macedonian women and that they had burned all the Slavophonic villages. One hundred years ago After the Ottoman army left Macedonia, Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks wante
Read more