Lecture: Ilkka Kuivalainen – From the Mediterranean to the Far North – Ancient artefacts in Finnish collections

There are Greco-Roman objects in several museums and public and private collections in Finland. Some of them were brought here in prehistoric times, but most of these collections have been built up since the 18th century, when the study of ancient art became more scientific and archaeological excavations began in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Items that came here were usually bought from antique shops and flea markets, picked up on ruin sites, or received as gifts from locals. Collecting has generally been haphazard, as with sea captains’ or tourists’ souvenirs. Later on, university’s teachers have also made more scientific purchases, and sometimes specifically ordering them. Besides genuine antiquities, forgeries or copies of well-known works have been acquired by mistake, for example, for educational purposes.

Ilkka Kuivalainen, PhD, lecturer in Latin and history at Ressu Upper Secondary School, is a researcher specialising in classical archaeology and the history of ancient art. He is head of the mural group of the University of Helsinki’s Pompeii Project (Expeditio Pompeiana Universitatis Helsingiensis). His doctoral thesis was about the Pompeian Bacchus. Besides Pompeii, Kuivalainen’s research interests have included ancient Greek and Roman artefacts, and copies of them in Finland.

Duration: 1 hour.
80 seats.
With a museum ticket.
The presentation is held in Finnish.

No advance registration. Please sign up at the service desk when arriving in the museum.