Vezető a Déri Múzeum kiállításaihoz (Debrecen, 1978)
English Summary
well the characteristics of the Egyptian plam art, the lack of drawing in perspective. The great number of the amulets exhibited in the next vitriné shows well the respect for amulets spread in the late era. They were partly placed near the corpses and partly the living wore them stringed to expel the evil. These amulets, except for some, were made from the so-called Egyptian faience. In vitriné 4. the most characteristic pieces of grave furniture of the funeral cult in the New Empire, the so-caled Usebti statues can be seen. The funcion of these sauettes were to work instead of the dead in the other world. In vitriné 5. the gods and the bronze statues of the animals, treated as gods, of the sais period (the last great period of Egyption art) can be seen: Osiris, Isis with Horus, Harpokrates, Ptah, Sekhrnet, Imhotep, Nofertum and animals worshipped as saints. In the last vitriné utensils, the characteristic furniture legs, alabaster and bronze pots (all of them are grave furniture) can be seen. Besides them the Alexandrian glass jugs are remarkable. The terracotta statuettes are already from the time of the Roman Empire, while the Coptic textile rags were made in the 4th —5th centuries A. D. Classical art reached its highest standard on the territory of Greece. On the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula the first Greek tribes appeared at the beginning of the 2nd millennium B. C. and developed a flourishing culture (Mykene). The slave —holder city — täte system (poils) came into being in the 9th —8th centuries B. C. In this archaic era arts show some Oriental influence. After the repulse of the Persian attacks at the beginning of the 5th century B. C. Athen became the leading power of the Greek world. This gave possibility for the perfection of the Athenian democracy parallel with classical culture. It reached its highest point under the reign of Pericles. After the middle of the 4th century B. C. the Macedonians occupied the weakened city — states and Alexander the Great established a world empire expanding as far as India, In the sucessor states, after his death, the so-called Hellenistic art developed by the fusion of Greek and Oriental arts. The arts of Rome in the time of the Etruscan and Greek traditions, and became independent only from the 3rd century B. C. Between the 4th and the 1st centuries B. C. Rome, by its gradual conquest, gained power over Italy and later over the whole Mediterraneum of the antiquity. This brought about a change in its culture in the course of which Roman arts used and mixed with the results of the Hellenistic culture. The professionally made works of art in the period of the Empire got even to the farthest parts of the Empire and mixed with local influences, the result of which is the provincial art. The Greek-Roman Etruscan material can be seen together in the exhibition. In vitriné 1. some works of the Greek marble and terracotta sculpture can demonstrate the characteristics of Greek art. Besides the marble statues little terracotta statuettes appeared which were placed as votive-presents in shrines or were put into the graves. Later the function of these statues became different. Instead of decorating shrines they decorated homes. In the next vitriné little Etruscan and Roman bronze statues can be seen. 408
