From the British Museum an ancient and precious Irish jewel on loan to the Camonica Valley Museum

From April 28 to September 30, 2023, the Camonica Valley National Museum of Prehistory presents the exhibition Under the Same Sun. Europe 2500-1800 B.C., curated by Marco Baioni, Claudia Mangani and Maria Giuseppina Ruggiero.

The exhibition will revolve around an extraordinary artifact from the British Museum, namely the gold “lunula” from Blessington, Ireland, dated between 2400 and 2000 BCE. The artifact is part of a production attested in this chronological range mainly in Ireland and Britain of precious gold leaf collars, called lunulae (from the Latin for “small moons”) because of their shape. In spite of the name, however, these objects were not so much related to the representation of the moon as to the sun and its symbolism. The use of gold, the careful polishing of the surfaces, reflected sunlight with dazzling effects: they were ornaments of great prestige that distinguished by status those who wore them, perhaps on special occasions and ceremonies.

The arrival in Valle Camonica of the precious artifact stems from the collaboration with the British Museum supported in 2022 by Emanuela Daffra on the occasion of the loan of four stelae for the exhibition The world of Stonehenge, which traced the millennial history of that exceptional monument.

The Blessington lunula acts as a catalyst for discovering the existence of other lunulae from contexts in northern Italy and allows us to revisit some of the images engraved on the stelae and boulder-menhirs of the Camonica Valley with a different gaze.

From the Museum of the Megalithic Area of Saint Martin de Corléans (Aosta) comes the half-moon-shaped copper pendant on display. Arriving from the new National Archaeological Museum in Verona are the half-moon silver breastplate and copper halberd from Villafranca Veronese along with two other bronze lunulae from Lazise. Also from Verona, but from the Museum of Natural History, comes the bronze lunula from Torbiera di Guardola (Mantua). Prominent then, among the items on display. is the trousseau from Tomb 4 from San Giorgio Bigarello (Mantua), which is here on public display for the first time: a double burial that included the remains of a boy and a woman.

What is exhibited at the National Museum of Prehistory of the Camonica Valley will find an in-depth study and context through the stages that, in succession, will involve the Archaeological Museum of the Valle Sabbia in Gavardo and the Civic Archaeological Museum “G. Rambotti” in Desenzano.

At the Gavardo Museum from May 1 through September 30, 2023, the focus will be on relations between northern Italy and the transalpine world; from July through October 2023, however, it will be the turn of the Rambotti Museum, where the theme of trade networks and cultural connections will be illustrated through the study of a particular artifact: the brassard, a rectangular stone plaque, probably used as a wrist guard for archers, of which we find similar examples in Italy and various parts of Europe.

In the year of Brescia and Bergamo as capitals of culture, starting from the analysis of the single artifact, the gaze extends beyond local production in search of comparisons and contacts with other contexts of the Garda morainic amphitheater and then looks out over the European panorama.

For info: http://www.mupre.capodiponte.beniculturali.it/

Hours: Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Valle Sabbia Archaeological Museum, Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Sunday 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. Closed Saturdays.

Museo Civico Archeologico “Giovanni Rambotti,” Tuesday through Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Friday through Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays and Wednesdays.

From the British Museum an ancient and precious Irish jewel on loan to the Camonica Valley Museum

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