MARQ hosts for the first time an international exhibition on Etruscan culture in collaboration with Italian museums

   

 

 

The Alicante Provincial Council presented today in FITUR the first international exhibition on Etruscan culture, which will be held at the Archaeological Museum of Alicante from August to December 2021. Under the heading The Etruscans. The Dawn of Rome'.The new collection will trace the history of this mysterious and refined civilisation from its origins in the 9th century BC to its gradual absorption under Roman rule in the 1st century BC.

At the presentation, the President of the Provincial Council, Carlos Mazónand the vice-president and deputy for culture, Julia ParraThe exhibition, which will bring together 150 original pieces found in some of the most important excavations in Ancient Etruria from the National Archaeological Museum of Florence and of the Guarnacci Museum of Volterraboth in Italy. 

Carlos Mazón pointed out that the province of Alicante "is once again committed to a tourist attraction that is an end in itself, culture, with an exhibition at the MARQ that starts from our heart, from our history and from our relationship with the peoples of the Mediterranean".

Likewise, the president, who highlighted the "magnificent work of Julia Parra's team and the museum in the preparation of this exhibition", insisted that the programming and the "first class" cultural attractions that the Provincial Council and the Culture Department are preparing for the coming months "will attract national and international tourists to our province".

For her part, Julia Parra insisted on the importance of this new proposal from a cultural and touristic point of view and stated that "it is the confirmation of the international projection and the level of excellence of MARQ, which works in collaboration with important European centres and other countries for the development of exhibitions of extraordinary quality and value such as the one we will be hosting this year". 

He also stressed that this exhibition "is also intended to significantly enrich the tourism offer and the differential value of the Costa Blanca as a first class destination. In this sense, culture forms part of the Alicante Provincial Council's firm commitment to the tourism sector, which generates employment, wealth and well-being in our province".

The presentation of 'Etruscans' was also attended by the director of the MARQ, Manuel Olcinaand the managing director of the MARQ Foundation, José Alberto Cortéswho have given advance notice of some details of the exhibition. The museum tour will take the public on a journey to discover the Etruscan civilisation, its social, political and urban structure, with special attention to the divine dimension, as well as the legacy they left to the ancient Romans and which conditioned their development as an empire.

The exhibition is divided into five thematic sections which reveal, with curiosities and unpublished facts, the greatest questions about the ancient Italic culture that preceded Rome. Visitors will be able to explore the spaces dedicated to the Ancient Etruria', 'Etruscan Civilisation', 'The Etruscans and the Sacred', 'Aldilà', and 'The Etruscans and Rome'..

Among the pieces selected are funerary figures and reliefs such as Ulysses' urn and the Mermaids of the Volterra Museum. It will also be possible to see a Chiusi canopic jara funerary stele from Florencethe urn of the Rape of Proserpina of Volterra or the male sarcophagus from the Rosavecchia necropolis in Tuscania.

In addition, as a faithful testimony to the importance of Etruscan trade in the ancient Mediterranean, the exhibition will include its own space to show the mark left by the Italic culture in Alicante, with pieces from various museums in Alicante - Xàbia, La Vila and MARQ itself - brought together under the title "...".Etruscan artefacts in Alicante"..

In addition, the project is accompanied by modern graphic and didactic resources, audiovisual projections and technological and interactive devicesin addition to a didactic area for younger visitors.   

 The vice-president invited the public to enjoy this great project as a family and also reminded them that the exhibition 'The Terracotta Warriors of Xi'an' is another of the MARQ's major projects that can be seen next year, from 1 April to 31 December 2022. 

 

 

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