If you walked by the Museum this last summer, this is what the upper courtyard looked like — a big construction site, full of equipment moving vast quantities of earth, as the area was excavated down some 25 feet below the original garden level. The fishpond and the garden were long gone, and plywood protected the walls and stairs of our historic building. Underpinning piers helped support the garden façades as the excavation went deeper and deeper, and truck after truck hauled away dirt.
But it didn’t look like this for much longer; in the fall, the construction crew began filling up the big hole, as the foundations were laid for the new space under the garden.
The Mediterranean Section received $18,000 Grant from the Museum Loan Network (MLN) to survey, research, and identify objects from its Etruscan collection, making objects from the collection available for long-term loan to other museums. The grant will enable the Museum to collaborate with other institutions that do not have such holdings, making the objects available to a wider audience.Lynn Makowsky, keeper of the Mediterranean Section, will direct the project. Funded and initiated by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, the MLN is administered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Office of the Arts. This is the fourth grant that the Museum has received from the MLN. Previous grants have been received by the American, African, and Near Eastern Sections.