Talk about a pain in the neck.
The reunited head and torso of a sculpture of a Roman soldier are on display, along with other artifacts, in an exhibition at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology titled "Images of Empire: Flavian Fragments in Rome and Ann Arbor Rejoined."
The exhibition, which opened Oct. 5 and will run until Feb. 17, brings together 15 fragments of Roman relief sculpture that have been dispersed between the collections of the Kelsey Museum and the Museo Nazional Romano in Rome, Italy.
"This is one of the more exciting shows we've had," said Elaine Gazda, professor of history of art and director of the Kelsey Museum. "It's a collaborative effort between Kelsey and the Soprintendenza Archeologica of Rome. About $100,000 of grant money went into this exhibit, and we've been working on it for over 10 years."
But the story behind "Images of Empire" began much earlier.
In 1901, Francis Kelsey, a professor of archaeology at the University, and Paul Hartwig, a German scholar, acquired a number of sculpture fragments, now identified as "Flavian fragments," which had just been found in a construction site in Rome. Kelsey purchased six pieces for University museums, and Hartwig bought nine pieces and donated them to Museo Nazional Romano.
Kelsey and Hartwig were entirely unaware of each other's actions.
Seventy-seven years later, in 1978, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina realized that the head of a Roman soldier in Rome seemed to match the body of a Roman soldier in Ann Arbor.
"We weren't sure until Rome sent us a cast of the break in the sculpture," Gazda said. "We took the cast and put it on top of our fragment ... it fit."
The Kelsey museum agreed to send their six fragments to Rome to allow for study of the entirety of the sculpture's remains. In return, Kelsey would receive casts of the nine Roman fragments when the Ann Arbor fragments were returned.
All 15 pieces, six original, nine replica, are on display now.
Setting up the display was no easy task.
"It was like a theatrical performance," said Dana Buck, exhibits preparator at the Kelsey Museum. "We had a deadline date. Everyone - students, faculty, staff - all-nighted together the night before the exhibit opened, fixing everything up. We were still sweeping floors when the first audience came through."
David Huppert, assistant preparator at the Kelsey Museum and an LSA first-year student, commented on the set-up aspect of the exhibit.
"It seems pretty mundane," he said. "Building frames for drywall to post exhibits, cutting wood and painting it for displays. But everyone has a job to do, and everyone here is indispensable."
The response to the exhibit has been mixed.
"It is very, very good," said Alfonso Araujo, a visiting student from Venezuela. "[The exhibit] is the first I've seen like this."
But a high school class that toured the exhibit a few days ago had a slightly different take.
"They liked how we showed the detective work in archaeology," said Becky Loomis, the Kelsey Museum's eductaional curatorial assistant. "We tried to bring it alive for them."
"But they did seem kind of bored."
KRISTEN SCHAEFER/Daily
Alfonso Araujo, a visiting student from Venezuela, looks at the Roman relief sculpture that has been rejoined at the Kelsey Museum.