Its without a doubt that everyone has had a thought about how our world has come to where it is at today, though not many people are into reading long books and historical articles about it, we can take away a lot from a museum. The Royal Ontario Museum has its newest exhibit on now – Mesopotamia: Inventing our World – where we can dig into the past and see the world as it once was. Throughout the exhibition, you can see over 170 artifacts that have come from The British Museum and other museums across North America, some being their first time in North America. These artifacts are originally extracted from Sumer, Assyria and Babylon and display the works and creations over 3000 years of one of the world’s greatest societies there ever was.
Throughout the exhibition, there are artifacts that date back to 3500 BCE (Before Common Era) which represents the building of a society that was a key part in history. If you don’t know much about Mesopotamia, there is plenty to learn and much to thank them for. Being the inventors as such simple things as beer, roads and instruments for music, they have also been the inventors of some things that are more complicated – law, math, and literature. They have have built and constructed some of the most important pieces of art and sculptures there are today. Archaeologists are able to take much from each piece built, from how it was made, to why, and what it represented. In the exhibition, these pieces are put on display to tell the story of Mesopotamia and what it was.
The exhibition in itself encompasses much more than just artifacts and stories, it is lightly dealing with a current crisis of the stealing and destruction of ancient artifacts. Throughout more recent past, there have been problems with looting artifacts and destruction of archaeological sites. Being the ravaged wars going on within Syria and Egypt right now, there are sites that are in danger of these horrible crimes, and within this Exhibition, they are trying to make the problem more prominent. Though there is little things anyone can do to stop this, not buying artifacts is one of them. The artifacts have a place, within their sites or within a museum, and this exhibition is a true display of that.
For a true historic experience, one you can immerse yourself in, this is the one. You can catch this show up until January 5th, 2014 at the Royal Ontario Museum here in Toronto.
By: Montana McGiverin
