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Exhibition commemorates Sinai expeditions
Posted April 15, 2006; 06:46 p.m.
An exhibition titled "The Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount
Sinai," is on view through Friday, July 28, in the first floor lounge
of the Department of Art and Archaeology in McCormick Hall.
The exhibition of 24 photographs was organized to commemorate Kurt
Weitzmann (1904-93) and the Princeton-Michigan expeditions to Mount
Sinai. Weitzmann, a professor of art and archaeology at Princeton from
1945 to 1972, and his colleague George Howard Forsyth Jr., a member of
Princeton's class of 1923 and a professor at the University of
Michigan, organized a series of expeditions between 1956 and 1965 to
Egypt, with the aim of studying the Monastery of St. Catherine and its
treasures.
The monastery, which dates to 548-65, is thought by some Biblical
scholars to be the location of the "burning bush" where Moses first
encountered God. The well-preserved church is decorated with some of
the finest sixth-century mosaics. Constructed of local stone, the
church also incorporates other building materials, such as wood and
marble, which were imported from afar with great difficulty.
The exhibition includes a selection of images from Weitzman's
collection that provides insights into various aspects of the
monastery, its environment, its history, its architecture and its
perception by early travelers. Some of the photographs are more than a
century old and reveal the conditions within the monastery complex that
have changed significantly over time.
The photographs, some of which were taken by Weitzman when he was at
the monastery, are preserved in the Research Photograph Collection of
the Department of Art and Archaeology. The exhibition was conceived in
conjunction with a graduate seminar titled "Juncture of Heaven and
Earth: The Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai" taught this
spring by Slobodan Ćurčić, professor of art and archaeology. It was
organized and designed by Ćurčić and Shari Kenfield, curator of the
Research Photograph Collection.
Hours for the exhibition are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.