25 JUNE 2011 – 16 OCTOBER 2011
CHIANCIANO TERME CIVIC AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
The ‘houses of souls’ are architectural models of buildings of various kinds, houses, huts, temples, granaries, towers and more. Found mainly in funerary and votive deposits, sometimes also in built-up areas, they may have different functions. Some are used as cinerary urns – real dwellings for the soul -, others constitute votive offerings to deities or are used as instruments of worship during religious ceremonies. Such miniature reproductions of buildings can be found all over the Mediterranean region and in Mesopotamia, as well as in China, in some cultures of Mesoamerica and elsewhere. The oldest specimens date back as far as the 6th millennium B.C. and were made by some Neolithic cultures in Thessaly (Greece), but the phenomenon is attested up to the present day. The exhibition, which is divided into sections, deals with some of the main themes related to ancient architectural models, namely the contexts in which they were found, their functions, miniaturisation and the relationship between the models and real architecture. A section is also dedicated to canopic urns, terracotta cinerary urns with anthropomorphic features that constitute a very peculiar heritage of Etruscan funerary art and in particular of the Chianciano Terme region. Through the anthropological exploration, one of the key points highlighted by the research is that, from whatever perspective one considers them, the houses of souls materialise an underlying tension to miniaturise the existing that has characterised the artistic and material production of cultures since the remotest antiquity.
The project was conceived and realised by MUSEC in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Senesi and the Museo Civico Archeologico di Chianciano Terme, with the participation and support of: Province of Siena, Municipality of Chianciano Terme, Vernice Progetti Culturali, Monte dei Paschi di Siena Foundation, Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank, Region of Tuscany, Archdiocese of Siena-Colle di Val d’Elsa-Montalcino, Chamber of Commerce of Siena, Municipality of Siena, Diocese of Montepulciano-Chiusi-Pienza, University of Siena, Academy of the Fisiocritici. One of the fruits of this project is the temporary exhibition ‘The houses of souls. Ancient civilisations and living. Models and Miniatures’, which presents to the public, in the evocative setting of the rooms of the Archaeological Civic Museum of Chianciano Terme, some thirty works from major Italian and Swiss museums.
The project has involved the MUSEC research team, which has specifically investigated the theme of the meaning and value of the reduced model and the study of the functions of the houses of souls in their different contexts of origin. In the course of the research, the MUSEC team was able to draw on the contribution of a number of scholars specialised in the subject, especially for their architectural expertise. These included Pedro Azara of the University Polytechnic of Catalonia in Barcelona and Darko Pandakovic of the Milan Polytechnic, who also contributed their writings to the catalogue. The coordination of the research activities and seminars is by Adriana Mazza, Head of Higher Education Activities at MUSEC. The temporary exhibition “The houses of souls” also inaugurates ArcheoFest, the first Italian national archaeology festival that will feature Chianciano Terme and the Val di Chiana area with a calendar full of events.
