Treasures at the Carlos Museum at Emory

While browsing through a booklet of things to do in Atlanta I came upon an entry for a special exhibit called "For I am the Black Jaguar: Shamanic Visionary Experience in Ancient American Art" at the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the Emory campus.  Photography without flash was allowed in the permanent exhibits, but not for the special exhibit.

Emory's museum of ancient art is small but excellent.

There was an exhibit called "The Plains of Mars: Warfare and Peace in European War Prints 1525-1800" that contained this print of "Death on the Battlefield" by Stefano Della Bella c. 1648.

The Story of Melanippe, Greek 230-220 BC

I am fascinated by ancient coins for some reason.  Here's an interesting tidbit: Ancient Greek coins seldom had official names. Each city would mint its own and have them stamped with recognizable symbols of the city, along with suitable inscriptions, and they would often be referred to either by the name of the city or of the image depicted. The exact exchange value of each was determined by the quantity and quality of the metal, which reflected on the reputation of each mint.  Cool, right?

They also had a beautiful display for Egypt, my favorite part being the mummified animals.  Pictured below are the coffin for a falcon...and a kitten. (Correction, mummies, not coffins!)

As I mentioned before, photography was not allowed in the special exhibit, and the book they were selling only had black and white photos in it which did not do the objects justice.  Katrina liked the entheogens exhibit which was about how drugs induced a religious experience because she learned about them recently in her Psychology of Religion class.  Visions were induced using meditation, drumming and dancing, and ingesting plants such as peyote, caapi vines, and espingo seeds.  I did find an execellent video on the exhibit narrated by a professor of art history at Emory on YouTube...check it out!