A GUIDE TO THE EXHIBITION ILLUSTRATING GREEK AND ROMAN LIFE.
_SECOND EDITION._
[Illustration:
_Frontispiece._ TERRACOTTA BOATS FROM AMATHUS (p. 34).
]
BRITISH MUSEUM.
DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.
A GUIDE
TO THE EXHIBITION ILLUSTRATING
GREEK AND ROMAN LIFE.
_SECOND EDITION._
WITH A FRONTISPIECE AND TWO HUNDRED AND
SIXTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES.
1920.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 1,
AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W. 1.
ERRATA.
P. 121, l.17. _For_ =339= _read_ =339*=
Pp. 143, 144, 145. _For_ =421-426= _read_ =421*-426*=
P. 216 near foot. _For_ =655= _read_ =655*=
PREFACE.
In this Exhibition an attempt has been made to bring together a number
of miscellaneous antiquities which formed a part of the collections of
the Department, in such a method as illustrates the purpose for
which they were intended, rather than their artistic quality, their
material, or their place in the evolution of craft or design.
Such a series falls naturally into groups, and it has been found
convenient to treat these groups in accordance with a general scheme,
the illustration of the public and private life of the Greeks and
Romans.
The materials forming the basis of this scheme are, primarily, objects
which already formed part of the Museum collections: for this reason
it has not been possible always to preserve that proportion in the
relation of the sections to the whole which would have been studied
if the objects had been selected for acquisition with this purpose
in view. Further, it is necessary to warn visitors that they must not
expect to find the subject in any sense exhaustively treated here:
the complete illustration of every detail of ancient life would be
impossible for any museum as at present constituted. All that can here
be done is to shape the available material into a system which may at
least present a fairly intelligible, if limited, view of ancient
life. Several new acquisitions, made since the appearance of the first
edition of this Guide, have strengthened the exhibition in directions
in which it was deficient, and it is hoped that this process will be
continued. Meanwhile, some of the gaps have been filled by means of
casts and reproductions of objects belonging to other categories in
this Museum, or preserved elsewhere.
The preparation of the first edition of this Guide (1908) was
entrusted to different members of the Departmental Staff. Mr. Yeames
prepared a great deal of the necessary preliminary work: Mr.
Walters wrote the sections on Athletics, the Circus, Gladiators, and
Agriculture: Mr. Forsdyke those on Coins, Arms and Armour, Dress
and the Toilet. The remaining sections were mainly the work of Mr.
Marshall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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