The second of a four-part
series on protecting cultural heritage was held Friday at
Italy's embassy in Washington, DC.
Today's event was part of a series called 'Protecting Our
Heritage', on the need to protect cultural heritage from threats
posed by terrorism, crime, climate change, and neglect.
It featured a talk by Aparna Tandon from an
intergovernmental organization based in Rome called the
International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and
Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).
Tandon presented her course called 'First Aid for Cultural
Heritage in Times of Crisis', to be offered in the US capital in
conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and featuring
numerous international experts in the field.
The first event took place Wednesday with a focus on the
Egyptian Museum in Turin, which specializing in ancient Egyptian
archaeology and anthropology and houses one of the largest
collections of Egyptian antiquities with more than 30,000
artefacts.
Christian Greco, the museum's director, illustrated how the
museum's involvement with its community and local leaders has
made cultural heritage relevant to modern-day identity.
Italy's ambassador to the US, Armando Varricchio, lauded
the museum as a model of innovation.
"The Egyptian Museum of Turin houses the second-largest
collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world after Cairo,"
the ambassador said.
"It was wholly remodeled recently, and is an extraordinary
example in terms of novel museum practices, innovative research,
and informational projects," Varricchio said.
He spoke at the opening of a photo exhibition on famed
Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli, who discovered Queen
Nefertari's tomb in Deir el-Medina in the Valley of the Queens
in 1904 and excavated the tomb of the royal architect Kha and
his wife Merit in 1906. The latter was found intact and
displayed in toto in the Turin museum, which Schiaparelli
directed from 1894 until his death in 1928.
The four-part event series was organised by the Italian
embassy with the EU National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC), and
is sponsored by UNESCO.
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