Amarana Vision
LdM Gallery in collaboration with CAMNES – Center for Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, is pleased to present Born of Light: The Amarna Vision curated by Massimiliano Franci, Irene Morfini and Valentina Santini.
A brand-new capital, built from scratch in record time; a revolutionary art form, driven by an extreme – sometimes even exaggerated – naturalism; an once-marginal god elevated to supreme ruler of the whole pantheon; and a major god – until then the foremost in ancient Egyptian religion – literally erased from every visible surface, to obliterate his memory from History. These are the hallmarks for one of the most extraordinary epochs of the ancient Egypt: the Amarna Period.
This revolutionary era – spanning the reign of pharaoh Akhenaten and that of his immediate successors, and lasting for roughly 20 years (1350–1330 BCE) – stands at the heart of this exhibition, which aims to guide the visitor through the sweeping transformations that defined the Amarna Period and to show them what made this brief moment in time so unique.
Step back into the 14th century BCE, to glimpse the ancient Egyptian society during this radical and subversive age, and to meet the pharaoh who shattered centuries of orthodoxy, by defying tradition itself: Akhenaten.
BIO curators:
Massimiliano Franci is an Associate Professor of Egyptology and Food Anthropology at CAMNES-LdM Institute. He was the secretary of the International Congress of Egyptologists, held in Florence in 2015. He participated in numerous international conferences and is the author of many scientific contributions, such as: “Rethinking Osiris (Rome 2021)” in collaboration with Salima Ikram (AUC) and Irene Morfini (CAMNES), and “The Stelae of Khentykhetjwn and the Ancient Egyptian Lexical Field of ‘The man, ages, and Kinship’: an invitation to an Anthropological Analysis (Cairo 2022)”. Among his recent projects is the development of new information technologies for the analysis of Egyptian artifacts in partnership with the CNR and the University of Florence.
Irene Morfini is an Egyptologist and Archaeologist. She graduated in Egyptology from both the University of Pisa in Italy and at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. In 2019 she obtained her PhD at the University of Leiden. She’s participated in numerous excavations in Italy since 2000 and in Egypt since 2007. Since 2013 she has been co-director of the Min Project in Luxor. She has been vice-president of the Canarian Association of Egyptology who carries out research and dissemination of knowledge in the field of the archaeological, historical and scientific heritage of ancient Egypt and has been developing cultural projects in Egypt, Cuba and Ghana since 2011. Since 2017 she has been part of the staff of CAMNES. From 2019 till 2022 she has been working in the field for the EU-funded project ‘Transforming the Egyptian Museum in Cairo’, for the National Museum of Antiquities of Leiden and for the Museo Egizio of Turin.
Valentina is Egyptologist and responsible for communication at the centre for archaeological studies CAMNES, based in Florence (Italy), and is currently pursuing her PhD in Egyptology at the University of Birmingham (UK), with a thesis focused on the analysis of New Kingdom bereavement scenes from a psychological and anthropological standpoint. She is also involved in the Egypopcult Project, which aims to promote the study of the perception of ancient Egypt in contemporary cultures, and is part of the Editorial Board of the magazine Scoprire l’Antico Egitto (Sprea Ed.), intended for the wider public. She recently co-edited the volume Sacredness at Deir el-Medina (Arbor Sapientiae). She has participated in numerous international conferences, authored various scientific papers, and published books for a broad audience.
About LdM Gallery
The LdM Gallery is a project by Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici, an interdisciplinary space where academic research and artistic experimentation meet within a professional setting.
Every LdM Student, professor, or staff member can participate in this project!
The LdM Gallery is a project by Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici, an interdisciplinary space where academic research and artistic experimentation meet within a professional setting.