30 August to 3 November 2019
Mosul, Aleppo, Palmyra, Leptis Magna – the names of these cities resonate as symbols of the fabled cultural heritage of ancient civilisations, but also as symbols of the wanton destruction of their vestiges by fanaticism and war. The exhibition employs state-of-the-art virtual reconstructions, spectacular animations and giant screens to bring these legendary ruined cities of the ancient Arab world back to life.«Spectacular, striking, moving: the 3D views of the ruins of Mosul, Aleppo, Palmyra, and Leptis Magna […] will leave you speechless.»Le Monde
It invites visitors to embark on a journey through time and space into their glorious history, to witness their destruction in the recent past and to contemplate the possibility of their future reconstruction.
The itinerary takes visitors from the ancient city of Nineveh, which today is part of Mosul (Iraq), to Aleppo (Syria), where successive Muslim empires from the Umayyads to the Ottomans left behind an extraordinary architectural treasure. Further stops are Leptis Magna (Libya), founded by the Phoenicians and once known as the ‘African Rome’, and, finally, Palmyra (Syria), the legendary Graeco-Roman ‘pearl of the Orient’.
At the end of your visit to the exhibition, you can explore six of the destroyed and currently inaccessible iconic sites of the Arab world with the help of virtual reality headsets. A spectacular experience, developed especially for this exhibition by Ubisoft, one of the major videogame developer in the world, renowned for the virtual worlds it creates. With this exhibition, the Bundeskunsthalle wants to underscore the importance of preserving this universal heritage of all humanity.
