First of the meetings scheduled in the cycle “Alteritas Seminars 2017”. The conference will be held at the headquarters of Alteritas, via del Seminario 8, in Verona and will focus on the presentation of the exhibition “Before the alphabet. Journey to Mesopotamia at the Origins of Writing’. It will be led by Assyrologist Fredrick Mario Fales, who is also the curator of the exhibition, which is being held in Venice at Palazzo Loredan until 25 April. Over 200 works from the collection of Giancarlo Ligabue, entrepreneur and great collector, who passed away in 2015. Pieces that will be exhibited to the public for the first time and among which are ancient tablets and extraordinary seals dating back 5,000 years. Testimonies that evoke the great civilisation of Ancient Mesopotamia, an area now rendered inaccessible due to wars. Frederick Mario Fales (University of Udine) is one of the best known Assyrologists and scholars of the Ancient Near East. The collection put together by Giancarlo Ligabue, he told the Corriere del Veneto, is ‘an extraordinary collection not only in terms of its size, quality and the historical importance of these and other materials, but in that it bears witness to slow collecting, respectful of the places that Giancarlo studied and of the institutions, of research and knowledge; a passionate collecting, aimed at preserving memory and not at defrauding cultures for other purposes’.
Introduced by Simona Marchesini, Alteritas scientific officer.
