Exhibition on women in ancient Athens for the 10th anniversary of Onassis Foundation in NY

NEW YORK (ANA-MPA / P. Panagiotou)
The exhibition "Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens" was inaugurated on Tuesday Dec. 9 at the Onassis Cultural Center in Manhattan.

The exhibition coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the Manhattan-based Affiliated Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA). Onassis Cultural Center Executive Director Ambassador Loukas Tsilas stated that Greece has had a distinguished cultural presence in the United States during the past 10 years.
Ambassador Tsilas stated that a total of 260,000 people have visited the ten major and the 15 smaller exhibitions hosted by the Center, while roughly 120,000 attended various events. Approximately 70,000 students and professors took part in seminars and international conferences held in North and South America, he said.
In addition, at least 110 intellectuals, academics and scientists from Greece and other countries have been invited to the United States and have addressed over 300 universities and educational institutes, while US and international media like The New York Times have covered events hosted by the Onassis Cultural Center using positive and encouraging comments.

The major exhibition Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens will be on view from December 10, 2008, through May 9, 2009, at the galleries of the Onassis Cultural Center in New York. The exhibition brings together 155 rare and extraordinary archaeological objects in order to re-examine preconceptions about the exclusion of women from public life in ancient Athens.

Worshipping Women is organized by the Onassis Foundation (USA) in collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Greece and is the first major exhibition in the 10th anniversary season of the Onassis Foundation (USA) and the Onassis Cultural Center.

Among the treasures brought to New York for the exhibition are marble statues of the goddesses Artemis and Athena (National Archaeological Museum, Athens); a white-ground vase with an image of Artemis, by the Pan Painter (State Hermitage Museum, Petersburg); a red-figure vase with an image of Iphigenia, the legendary heroine worshiped as a cult figure and seen as a model for priestesses (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Ferrara); a vase depicting the Trojan priestess Theano, another model for priestesses, receiving the Greek warriors who had come to recover Helen from Troy (Vatican Museums); and a limestone grave marker (conserved with support from the Onassis Foundation) carved with the image of a young woman in bridal costume, holding a votive offering (State Museums of Berlin).

Interspersed with these and other exquisite artworks are archaeological objects that document the religious practices of Classical Athens and tell the complex story of women’s roles in that society.

Source: Athens News Agency