Art Of The Day Weekly
#362 - from 30 October 2014 to 5 November 2014
Saint Anne, 9th century, tempera on mud plaster, the Faras Gallery, Warsaw National Museum.
Wonders from Nubia
WARSAW - On the eve of the construction of the Pharaonic Aswan dam, archaeological diggings were launched to save the riches along the Nile. The Polish archaeologists, who were working in Sudan, to the South of the first waterfall, directed by Kazimierz Michalowski (1901-1981), unearthed in Faras a cathedral built in the 7th century, and constantly enriched up to the 14th century. Through an agreement with the Sudanese government, half of the findings were sent to the National Museum of Warsaw. Textiles, funeral monuments, sculpted capitals and above all some sixty frescoes (the Holy Family, the archangels and saints) that reperesent the most beautiful fund of Nubian art in Europe. It has been completely rearranged in a new museography which incorporates other pieces that come from the Christian kingdoms of Ethiopia.
• The Faras gallery at the National Museum opened to the public on 13 October 2014.