National Museum of Oriental Art
Encyclopedia
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, dedicated to the arts of the Orient
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
, from the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
In particular, the museum has a rather remarkable collection of artifacts from the Gandhara
Gandhara
Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
area. This is due the archaeological missions of the Italian Institute for Middle and Far East (IsMEO) to the Buddhist and protohistoric sites of Swat, namely the Butkara Stupa
Butkara Stupa
The Butkara Stupa is an important Buddhist stupa in the area of Swat, Pakistan. It may have been originally built by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, but it is generally dated slightly later to the 2nd century BCE....
, Barikot
Barikot
Barikot is a town in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, located in the Swat valley region . Barikot is the present day name of the ancient "Bazira", which was besieged by Alexander the Great....
, Panr, Aligrama among others. Other collections include items from the Palace of Mas'ud III and the Buddhist shrine of Tape Sardar at Ghazni
Ghazni
For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni ProvinceGhazni is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, the prehistoric city of Shahr-e Sokhteh, in eastern Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, and the art objects from Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
and Ladakh
Ladakh
Ladakh is a region of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Republic of India. It lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent...
collected by Giuseppe Tucci
Giuseppe Tucci
Giuseppe Tucci was an Italian scholar of oriental cultures, specialising in Tibet and history of Buddhism. During its zenith, Tucci was a supporter of Italian Fascism, and he used idealized portrayals of Asian traditions to support Italian ideological campaigns...
on his travels in 1928-1948.
The museum is located in via Merulana 248, and displays artifacts in 14 rooms. A few new rooms are expected to open soon: last one, the Korea room, opened in June 2010. Photographs of the artifacts are allowed on application to the Director of the Museum only.