The story of this exhibition will be told through the three great centres of Mesopotamian civilisation: Sumer, Assyria and Babylon. The first section on Sumer looks at the growth of society and its contact with the wider world in the third millennium BCE. Objects excavated from the Hafeet and Umm an-Nar cultures, based in modern day Abu Dhabi and contemporaneous of Sumer, will demonstrate the close links between Sumer and the Gulf region. The exhibition will also explore how knowledge has been passed from the ancient to the modern world, particularly in the areas of science, communication, art and literature, and will showcase treasures that link to the United Arab Emirates. The stunning array of object featured in Splendours of Mesopotamia are on loan from the British Museum and Al Ain National Museum.
Splendours of Mesopotamia also marks a significant milestone in the journey towards the realisation of Abu Dhabi´s cultural vision, being the first in a series of exhibitions preparing the way for the opening of Zayed National Museum in the Saadiyat Cultural District. The exhibition affords a tantalising glimpse of the likely contents of the Zayed National Museum, whose galleries will each illustrate a different value or principle highly prized by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, to whom the museum is dedicated.
Splendours of Mesopotamia will be shown at Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi.
For more information on lectures, workshops and other events accompanying the exhibition, please click here to visit the Arts Abu Dhabi website