The collections of the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University span the globe and the centuries. Housed in a distinguished building by renowned architect Michael Graves, the Carlos maintains the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast with objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East, and the ancient Americas. The Museum is also home to collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century sub-Saharan African art and European and American works on paper from the Renaissance to the present day.

The Carlos Museum works with Emory faculty members to develop unique special exhibitions that draw on collections from around the world to engage the public and contribute to current scholarship. The Museum also mounts exciting traveling exhibitions developed by other institutions and makes them available to its community.

Robert Rauschenberg's Currents: Features and Surface Series

Selected screen prints from Robert Rauschenberg's two series Features and Surface Series ( both from Currents) will be on display in the John Howett Works on Paper Gallery. The subject matter of these prints was literally torn from the headlines of newspapers in several U.S. cities in the first months of 1970. The overall title Currents refers both to current events and to water currents as a metaphor for the swirl of topics that come and go in the media that surround us. The issues that concernd Rauschenberg in 1970: the Vietnam War, the Middle East situation, the state of the environment, are still deeply relevant today.

Special Exhibitions: Upcoming

February 9 - August 31, 2008

Lost Kingdoms of the Nile: Nubian Treasures from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Organized by by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in conjunction with the Carlos Museum, Lost Kingdoms of the Nile features some of the most significant archaeological treasures ever found in Africa. This monumental exhibition—consisting of over 250 objects in gold, silver, bronze, ivory, stone, and ceramic ranging in date from 7000 B.C. to modern times—provides unprecedented insight into ancient Nubia, the extraordinary African civilization that has often been overshadowed by ancient Egypt.

Ancient Nubia thrived from 6000 BC to 350 AD in what is today southern Egypt and northern Sudan. The exhibition highlights not only some of the finest artworks ever found in ancient Africa but also the remarkable stories of their discovery by the intrepid archaeologists who were part of the Harvard-Boston Expedition from 1913 to 1932.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• An exquisite golden royal diadem, which will be reconstructed in its entirety for the
first time.

• Finely crafted ceramics, including some of the earliest pottery in the world.

• Treasures from the royal Nubian tombs, including part of an army of shawabti
figurines buried to work for the Nubian kings who ruled over the areas of both modern-day Egypt and the Sudan.

• Inscriptions in the mysterious language of Nubia.

Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London

August 24, 2007 - January 6, 2008: Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe

January 24 - June 8, 2008: Columbia Museum of Art

June 28 - November 2, 2008: Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

March 14 - June 14, 2009: University of Kentucky Art Museum

The Michael C. Carlos Museum is sharing its critically acclaimed exhibition with a national audience. The exhibition, organized by Carlos Museum curator Dr. Peter Lacovara from the holdings of the historic Petrie Museum in London, will visit several venues through 2008. In addition, the Carlos Museum-published companion catalogue will be available at each venue.

The exhibition invites you to experience the adventurous spirit of the early days of Egyptian archaeology through the discoveries of British pioneer and "the Father of Modern Archaeology," Sir William Flinders Petrie (1853-1942). More than 200 objects drawn from the London museum named for the legendary figure are featured, including one of the world's earliest surviving dresses (ca. 2400 BC), mysterious mummy portraits, and royal art from the pharaoh Akhenaten's famous city at Amarna. Rare archival photos and documents illustrate Petrie's brilliant innovations, which continue to inspire and inform great discoveries.