DAYTON, OH.- The Dayton Art Institute showcases rare treasures in THE ROMAN WORLD: Religions and Everyday Life featuring the Brooklyn Museum exhibition Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire. The exhibition explores multiculturalism in the Roman Empire through more than 140 objects, dating from the 5th century BCE to the 7th century CE and beyond, including mosaics, sculptures, textiles, glass, jewelry and coins. The exhibition is organized into four main themes: Roman Everyday Life, Polytheism, Judaism and Christianity.

At the heart of THE ROMAN WORLD is Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire, an exhibition that broke attendance records when it debuted in Brooklyn, New York. The twenty-one mosaic panels were acquired by the Brooklyn Museum in 1905. Twelve of the panels were part of the sanctuary floor of the synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia, dating from the 6th century CE, and depict themes of Creation and Paradise.

The exhibition also includes exceptional objects borrowed from other museums. Among the highlights are:
A stone sarcophagus from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University
Torso of a Satyr from the Columbus Museum of Art
A relief sculpture of Mithras Slaying the Bull from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Exquisite glass from the Toledo Museum of Art
Rarely seen objects from The Dayton Art Institute’s collection

Many of the artifacts in THE ROMAN WORLD have never before been publicly displayed.

THE ROMAN WORLD: Religions and Everyday Life featuring the Brooklyn Museum exhibition Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire will be on view at The Dayton Art Institute from September 21, 2007 to January 6, 2008.

The exhibition was guest curated by Dr. Sally A. Struthers, Dean of Liberal Arts, Communication, and Social Sciences at Sinclair Community College. Dr. Struthers earned her bachelor of arts degree from Wright State University, majoring in Art History and Classics, and her master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees from The Ohio State University, specializing in Ancient Greek and Roman, Italian Renaissance, and Baroque art.

Also an exhibiting photographer, Dr. Struthers’ photographs of Ancient Rome Today will be on view in the final gallery of THE ROMAN WORLD exhibition.

THE ROMAN WORLD is sponsored by Rex Stores Corporation, Good Samaritan Hospital/Premier Health Partners, Rose Family Philanthropic Fund of the JFGD, Levin Family Foundation, Linda W. Ruchman Memorial Philanthropic Fund of the JFGD, The Bon-Ton Stores Foundation, Bernard and Carole Rabinowitz Philanthropic Fund of the JFGD, and Tatjana Singer Memorial Philanthropic Fund of the JFGD. Tree of Paradise is made possible by the Brooklyn Museum’s Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Exhibition Fund.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE - Rome was once a vast empire – one of the greatest and most powerful in history. From its legendary founding in 753 BCE until its eventual fall in 1453 CE, Roman civilization spanned more than two thousand years. At its peak it is estimated that the population of the Roman Empire numbered more than one third of the world’s population.

The Roman Empire was a “melting pot,” composed of people from different ethnic identities, religions, and native tongues. Romans lived in a pluralistic society geographically, spanning three continents – Africa, Asia, and Europe – with people who worshipped numerous gods in a variety of religions. Many Romans worshipped the traditional Greco-Roman gods, but Romans were also Christians, Jews, and followers of Eastern religions such as the cults of Mithras, Isis and Astarte. In Roman cities temples to pagan gods sat next to Jewish synagogues, and later on, to Christian basilicas.
Common cultural symbolism is found in the art of the various religions of Rome. In some cases, a motif established by one religion would be adopted by another and maintain the same meaning. In other cases, the motif stayed the same but the meaning changed. The motifs and symbols of Roman times, in many cases, still pervade our culture to this day.

TREE OF PARADISE - The Brooklyn Museum’s Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire examines the role of twenty-one extraordinary Roman-period mosaics in the development of synagogue decoration in the late Roman Empire. Forty-two related artifacts, such as contemporaneous textiles, marble statues, gold jewelry, and bronze ritual objects, are also included.

Tree of Paradise also investigates the origins of synagogues, the development of Jewish art in the Roman period, female patronage in the ancient synagogue, the differences between early Christian and Jewish symbolism in art, and the relationship between ancient and modern synagogues.

The Latin inscription on the mosaic floor panels indicates that Julia of Naro gave the floor to the community – a rare example of female patronage in the ancient world. Two menorahs flank the inscription. Included are depictions of a tree in Paradise, sea animals and birds in a scene portraying Creation, and symbolic birds and baskets that relate to the themes of Creation and the coming of the Messiah. Decorative motifs include birds and fruits. The remaining nine panels came from other rooms in the synagogue and other nearby buildings. They depict animals, a male figure, and a female figure.

The discovery of these mosaics, which were last on view in Brooklyn in 1998, ushered in the birth of synagogue archaeology on February 17, 1883, when the French army captain Ernest de Prudhomme ordered soldiers under his command in Hammam Lif, Tunisia, to prepare his backyard for a garden. Instead of planting vegetables, Prudhomme and his men unearthed the first archaeological ruins of a Roman-period synagogue. Eventually, synagogue archaeology would revolutionize modern understanding of ancient Jewish life and religion.

Modern scholars have recognized that the gloomy depiction of Jewish life in later Roman Empire texts must be viewed alongside a decidedly different picture formed from archaeological evidence. Archaeological remains of ancient synagogues from Turkey to Spain and from Hungary to Tunisia show that many Jewish communities prospered in spite of official intolerance. Other discoveries of ancient synagogues in modern Israel, Jordan, Syria, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Italy reveal the vitality of Jewish life around the Mediterranean Sea during the Roman Empire and an unexpected tolerance from their non-Jewish neighbors.