The exhibition “Femina Balcanica: Mater, Matrona, Augusta, Dea. Woman on the Balkans in Antiquity” of the National Museum of Serbia, opens as part of the Statehood Day celebrations in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Wednesday, February 14th, 2024, starting at 6 p.m.
The exhibition “Femina Balcanica” is the result of the studious work of museum advisor Deana Ratković, the author of the exhibition, and four museum advisors from the Department of Archaeology of the National Museum of Serbia, Vera Krstić, Tatjana Cvjetićanin, Veselinka Ninković and Mirjana Glumac, thanks to whom visitors will have the opportunity to carefully selected museum objects introduce the occupations, family relationships, fashion, customs, position and role of women in the private and public sphere.
The exhibition, talking about femininity, beauty and social status, women in Roman fortifications, possible professional scopes, women in the household or political life, aims to familiarize all interested parties with the opportunities in earlier eras, encouraging reflection on the perception of roles and relationships in the past times as well as in the current age.
From objects for everyday use – horseshoes, toys, dishes, through various jewellery, medical instruments, sculptures or epigraphic monuments, the exhibition “Femina Balcanica” vividly tells different stories about women in the ancient era. Divided into five segments, each of which deals with one of the spheres of a woman’s life and phenomena related to her position in the family, cult, community or art, the exhibition traces the various roles that women have had. From the mistress of the house and housewife, mother, doctor, scribe, participant in rituals and religious rites, through the respectable woman represented by the typified statues of large and small girl from Herculaneum, Augusta as the imperial mother and wife who was positioned high on the social ladder and dictated the fashion of women in the cities, we will be in the opportunity to meet many women of the Roman Empire. With the help of various archaeological objects, “Femina Balcanica” provides answers to some of the questions that we might have when thinking about the time of the Roman Empire, while simultaneously opening new directions of interpretation in the context of today’s societies.