NEW YORK.- Athens-Sparta: From the 8th to the 5th Centuries B.C., an exhibition of rare archeological artifacts and works of art from Athens and Sparta, Greece, will open at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York City on December 6, 2006. Highlights of the exhibition will include treasures such as a marble head of the helmeted Spartan warrior, known as Leonidas, from the end of 6th century B.C.; a marble statue of an Athenian Kore from the Acropolis Museum, from the 5th century B.C.; bronze figurines of hoplites from Sparta, from the 8th to the 6th centuries B.C.; and arrowheads and spearheads from Thermopylae, the famous 5th-century battlefield.

The 288 exquisite artifacts in the exhibition, many of which will travel abroad for the first time, will also include marble statues and grave stele, ivory and bronze statuettes, pottery, mirrors, and ancient coins from the 8th to the 5th centuries B.C. The exhibition will be on view at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York through May 12, 2007.

Athens-Sparta will consist of three sections representing the cultural development of the two most important city-states in ancient Greece, along with an introduction that will focus on the two cities’ formations. The first section will explore their artistic, social and cultural developments from the Late Geometric Period through the Archaic period (8th to the 5th centuries B.C.), including metal work, pottery, and public monuments. While Sparta was not making the same strides in monumental structures as Athens during this period, it did flourish in other areas including metal work, ivory sculpture, and pottery. In the first half of the 6th century B.C., Sparta was one of the most important centers for artistic production, particularly for bronze works, as shown in such rare pieces as a black-figure hydria depicting riders and warriors, from 555-550 B.C., and a relief votive stele representing an enthroned couple, from 550-525 B.C.

The two other sections in Athens-Sparta will represent the artistic development during the 5th century B.C., in the broader context of the continuously changing dynamics between the two cities, during the Persian Wars (500 B.C. to 449 B.C.) and the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. to 404 B.C.). These momentous events greatly influenced each city-state’s culture and artistic development, as represented through the magnificent artifacts in the exhibition, including an Attic black-figure lekythos from 500-490 B.C., and a Nike figurine from the late 6th century B.C.

In the 5th century B.C., Attic art made advances in the areas of sculpture and pottery which led to the popularization of these art forms, examples of which include a votive relief with the Delian Trinity from the late 5th century B.C., and the silver Tetradrachm of Athens from 450-404 B.C. In contrast, there is a remarkable decrease of excavated Laconic artifacts from this period, with scant metal work pieces and little evidence of advancements in Laconian pottery. The archaeological evidence of Laconic monumental stone sculpture from the Classical period is also considerably less than that of the Archaic period. Athens-Sparta will feature a rare example of stone sculpture from this period: the bust of the Statue of Hoplitodromos, from 480-470 B.C., one of the most widely studied artifacts in the exhibition. The statue depicts a running hoplite (a heavily armored foot soldier), known as the Spartan king Leonidas, who led a small force of soldiers against the much larger Persian army in Thermopylae in 480 B.C., during the Persian Wars. Leonidas and all of the soldiers died in the battle, which became a symbol of the Spartan willingness to sacrifice oneself for the greater good of society.

Athens-Sparta balances out contemporary perspectives on the uneven cultural relationship between the two ancient city-states, in which Attic art has traditionally been recognized as the more advanced of the two. This higher regard for Attic art can be understood in the broader context of Attic culture as a whole, perceived as more refined and expressive than its rival neighbor. In contrast, Laconic culture – and by extension Laconic art – is generally considered austere and conservative. By bringing together such a vast selection of important artifacts from each city-state, Athens-Sparta challenges these perceptions, bringing to light the refinements of Laconic art and culture. The exhibition will highlight the accomplishments of Spartan artists and will give viewers the chance to find a depth and complexity in Laconic art that is normally overshadowed by that of Athens. Through these artifacts visitors will have the rare opportunity to examine the differences between the distinct philosophical, political and cultural ways of life of the two Hellenic city-states, aspects of which continue to resonate in cultures and human behavior in the present.

This exhibition will include loans from the Acropolis Museum, Epigraphical Museum, Kerameikos Museum, National Archaeological Museum, the Numismatic Museum, 3rd Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, the Archaeological Museum in Marathon, the Archaeological Museum in Olympia, the Archaeological Museum in Rhodes, the Archaeological Museum in Sparta, all located in Greece. Athens-Sparta will also include pieces from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and the American Numismatic Society, in New York.

Contributors to the exhibition catalogue will include, in addition to the curator, Dr. Donald Kagan, Sterling Professor of History and Classics at Yale University, Dr. Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History, Chairman of the Faculty of Classics, and a Fellow of Clare College, at the University of Cambridge, as well as eminent Greek historians and archaeologists like Georgia Kokkorou Alevras, Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Athens, Dr. Yanis Pikoulas, Professor at University of Thessaly (IAKA), Editor of Horos, Dr. Yannis Touratsoglou, Emeritus Director of the Numismatic Museum and of the National Archaeological Museum, and Ismini Trianti, Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Ioannina. Athens-Sparta is curated by Dr. Nikos Kaltsas, Director of the National Archaeological Museum. Dr. Kaltsas is the author of a prize-winning book, Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (2002), as well as many other widely published archeological studies of ancient Greece. Dr. Kaltsas is also a member of the Central Archaeological Council, the Central Council of Modern and Contemporary Monuments, and the Committee for the Conservation of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Onassis Cultural Center will organize a series of scholarly conferences, a lecture program, and dramatic readings of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War.