Situla Exhibition Opens in Ljubljana
The opening of an exhibition of situlas, ancient metal or pottery vessels from Slovenia, marked International Museum Day. The festival, hosted by the Slovenian National Museum and Ljubljana Castle, opened on Thursday evening.
The first part of the "Festival of Situlas" will be open at the National Museum between 19 May and 30 September, with the second part put on display at Ljubljana Castle from 19 May to 20 August.
The festival aims to present the oldest reminders of prehistoric art on the Slovenian soil, featuring bronze vessels, belt buckles, sheaths, earrings and helmets engraved with the scenes from the everyday and mythological life between the 7th and 4th centuries BC.
The ancient situla culture originated in the Etruscan centre of Bologna and Venetian culture in the north of Italy, from where it spread to the regions of Zasavje and Dolenjsko, in present-day Slovenia.
The first ever situla to be found on the Slovenian soil is the famous "Vace situla". It was discovered near the village of Vace in Zasavje, central Slovenia, by a young farmer in 1882, and is now kept by the Natural History Museum in Austria's Vienna.
The show at the National Museum, subtitled "Images of Life and Myth", was organised in cooperation with the Dolenjsko Museum from Novo mesto, south-east, the Berlin Museum of Prehistory and Early History and the Vienna Natural History Museum.
Museum-goers will be able to see ancient clothes, jewelry, dishes, means of transport, trades, weapons and battles as well as sexual and funeral rituals as depicted on situlas.
The "Stories of the Vace Situla" show at Ljubljana Castle, put on by the Slovenian Institute of Fine Arts, will feature a reconstruction of the work of a situla artist and a comparison of ancient images and objects found in Slovenia and abroad.
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