The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great Exhibit at Field Museum

The most comprehensive exhibition of Greek art and artifacts ever to tour outside Greece opened at the Field Museum of Chicago on November 25. This highly recommended show will be on view until April 10. From Chicago, it will move to the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C. and be on display from May 26 through October 9.

The Greeks were a diverse group of peoples inhabiting mainland Greece and the Greek islands, and, in ancient times, the coast of what is now Turkey. They shared a common language and religion, and many of the same political institutions.

Over the course of the several millennia of their ascendancy, the Greeks passed through a variety of social formations: from early class societies on the basis of the “Neolithic Revolution” in agriculture that began some 10,000 years ago in western Asia to the societies, based to a large degree on slave labor, which provided the material basis for a flowering of Greek culture and politics.

“Classical beauty,” wrote Hegel in his Aesthetics, “with its infinite range of content, material, and form is the gift vouchsafed to the Greek people, and we must honour this people for having produced art in its supreme vitality.”

The Greeks is organized by the Canadian Museum of History and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports in partnership with National Geographic Society and The Field Museum. The exhibition is co-presented in Chicago by The Field Museum and the National Hellenic Museum. The exhibition is developed by the Hellenic Republic – Ministry of Culture and Sports – Directorate General of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage (Athens, Greece), The Field Museum (Chicago, USA), the Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, Canada), the National Geographic Museum (Washington, DC, USA) and Pointe-à-Callière, Montréal Archeology and History Complex (Montréal, Canada).

The Field Museum gratefully acknowledges the support of the Chicago Park District on behalf of the people of Chicago.

Check out the full story on World Socialist  and the exhibit on the Field Museum website.