Inés Domingo, UB lecturer, to curate the exhibition “Art Primer. Artistes de la prehistòria” in the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia
UB lecturer Inés Domingo will curate the largest exhibition held so far in the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia (MAC): “Art Primer. Artistes de la prehistòria”, available until June 28. The exhibition counts with the participation of more than twenty institutions and museums from Catalonia, France and Spain, and it shows more than 250 objects. Domingo, ICREA researcher affiliated at the Prehistoric Studies and Research Seminar (SERP) of the UB, has been in charge of the exhibition together with Antoni Palomo, curator of MAC.
UB lecturer Inés Domingo will curate the largest exhibition held so far in the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia (MAC): “Art Primer. Artistes de la prehistòria”, available until June 28. The exhibition counts with the participation of more than twenty institutions and museums from Catalonia, France and Spain, and it shows more than 250 objects. Domingo, ICREA researcher affiliated at the Prehistoric Studies and Research Seminar (SERP) of the UB, has been in charge of the exhibition together with Antoni Palomo, curator of MAC.
Among the most distinguished pieces of the exhibition are several findings by UB researchers. It will be the first time, for instance, for the public to see the exceptional exhibition of Palaeolithic art engraved in a stone from about 14,000 years ago and which represents an image in which humans and birds interact. This piece was found by researchers from the SERP group in Hort de la Boquera (Margalef de Montsant, Priorat).
Another piece of the exhibition is an eagle phalange found in Cova Foradada in Calafell and which is the first evidence of ornamental uses with eagle claws in the Iberian Peninsula. This is the most modern piece of this type ever documented in the Neanderthal field, and this is why researchers called it “the last Neanderthal necklace”. This finding made it to the front page of the journal Science Advances with an article led by Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, researcher from the Institute of Human Evolution in Africa, also signed by several members of SERP, centre led by UB Professor Josep Maria Fullola. The UB lecturer Jordi Nadal brought another phalange and several eagle claws to the exhibition to ease the interpretation of the exhibited piece.
The exhibition also shows fragments of Levantine art with a great heritage value which were cleaned by the UB researcher Gemma Barreda, expert on restoration of Prehistoric rock art. The three pieces are in MAC and are the first samples of Levantine cave art that were found, in 1903.
“Art Primer. Artistes de la prehistòria” brings a journey through research on the origins of art, while explaining the Levantine cave art, one of the most originals artistic expressions to come up, in Catalonia and the rest of the peninsular Mediterranean area, more than 7,000 years ago. Organized as the closing ceremony of the 20th anniversary of the declaration of rock art in the peninsular Mediterranean façade as world heritage by UNESCO, the exhibition shows more than two hundred objects and documents of the European prehistory, while it offers many audiovisual and virtual reality resources in 3D, showing animated scenes of prehistory, reproductions of technological processes and the immersive visit of Roca dels Moros (les Garrigues).