MuCEM: Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations

A few words about the museum. I will first show you a few pictures of this museum, to know what it is. So, as you see, I have my bad English with text, it's better, you can read. And you see, this is a new architecture of this museum, synced by Roderick Schotty, which does this museum in a special concrete we knew, called Béton Fibré Ultra-Performant. You see, it's two buildings, a new one, which is here, and the Fort Saint-Jean, where you have a few buildings used as a museum. So, one new, one old. Béton Ramifi, in English. Rested in this basement. So, if I come back, here you have, here you have down auditorium, first stairs, Mediterranean gallery, I will talk about it, temporary exhibition, and here, a platform with restaurant. After, you have this bridge, I will show you. So, you see the platform with restaurant here, and this bridge, which you see the old building and the new one. So, you have an idea of what is this museum now. So, I will talk to you about the half-temporary exhibit. One curator of a Canadian museum said, what is a permanent gallery? It's a gallery which stays too long. So, this gallery is a half-temporary challenge, and has been challenged one time since I talked about it. So, I have a challenge when I think of this museum. I have only 1,700 square meters to talk all about Mediterranean. And, by example, during 10 years, in 1999 until 2009, during 10 years, many people tried to think about what to show about Mediterranean and Europe, and failed. And I arrived in 2011, and I have only 2 years to think about this project. So, my opinion, and I will read you the principle of this museum. The Mediterranean is an area of civilization. The Mediterranean etymology, the inland sea, only form a political entity during the several centuries that the Roman Empire existed. Since then, in spite of all the imperial fantasies that had established themselves around this shore, the Mediterranean area has never attained unity. But in spite of this event of homogeneous political, social, or religious entity was never reached, the Mediterranean area is one of the most fertile civilizations in existence, on a par with the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mesoamerica, around which different cultures have developed. In the area of the Chinese Sea, race-based civilization evolved. Elsewhere, they were based on corn, whereas the Mediterranean saw the expansion of wheat-based civilization. The way in which the Mediterranean world participated about 10,000 years ago in the spread of different forms of Neolithic occlusion is, amongst others, one of its singularities. The salient feature constitutes the founding principle of the Gallery of the Mediterranean dedicated to the inland sea. So, I'll show you first what is common to each cradle of civilization. By example, sorry, stone. To build something with stone is everywhere. You have stone, you have rocks, you have this kind of building. Other one is mummies. You have mummies in Inka civilization, mummies in Egypt, mummies in China. Other example, really important for me, is the writing, the script. Here, Sumerian. Sorry. Here, Sumerian. Manjodharu in India. Chinese. But Maya write script. And probably Egypt's script, it's not impossible, is invented in its size and not coming from Sumerian civilization. So, you have many common points between all those cradles of civilization. I built the Mediterranean Gallery. It was impossible to begin with Sumerian, continue with Greek and Phoenician and other. It was impossible to do that in 1,007 square meters. So, I propose to think the Mediterranean as a cradle of civilization, between the other, and develop singularities of this cradle of civilization. So, I propose, as I think first one civilization I told you about, is the wheat-based civilization. It's based on the wheat. It's specific from Mediterranean civilization, different from the other. And I think what is also common to all Mediterranean, and make Mediterranean cradle of civilization different from the other. And I propose, here you have the map, you see, in violet colors, you have wheat, you have rice, you have beans, and you see the different areas of civilization, how they grow. So, that's important, this other map I just told you, is I think humanity, only two human beings, know only two big revolutions. That one, when hunters became peasants, and the other one, we live today, when peasants became citizens. So, the first singularity is that one. It's about, called, invention of agriculture and born of God. Why born of God? I think when I talked, it's a revolution, when hunters became peasants, it's not only a material revolution, it's also a spiritual one, and I will explain. Man, harnessing nature, places himself above it, and therefore imagines being above himself. Thus, the birth of the gods reflected in the small animal sculpture and effigy of God presented in the gallery. Previous models, thoughts, are replaced by a new one, analogical thinking. The ball god, the Sumerian tablets, and his consort, the cow, godless, are successed by an infinity of pagan deities to which temples are dedicated. This mode of analogical thoughts leads to place of culture where men live massively settled life. Places dedicated to the supernature, temples, domestic, altars, sacred space, coming from this place of nature that a large number of nomadic farmers regularly menace sedentary societies concentrated around the city. Between the 6th millennium before, our area, until one century ago, the Mediterranean area lived to the rhythm of the advance of farmers, cultivating crops and raising cattle while exploiting exceeding resources. So, you have four singularities. The first one is about agriculture and God. Now you understand, I hope, why. So, there are those two maps. Here you see the first part of the gallery, with, for example, a sake for water coming from Egypt, which is really important because of the sedentary sterilization, because the first movement, the pluri-secular upheaval of the Mediterranean ecosystem, the advance of the farmer and the breeders, confronted with the difficulties of nature are fragile. Because of the sterilization of the plateaus linked to the practice of abatis burned by the first farmers, people grouped together in the valleys of the Great River, where more than 5,000 years ago, the civilization of Pharaonic Egypt and Sumerian cities were born. But I think also in Indus and in Yangtze, a big river is the same phenomenon. The sake exhibited in the centre, here you see, exhibited in the centre of the gallery recalls the age of this water-based civilization and the great importance of fresh water in the Mediterranean world, where natural irrigation is often insufficient and marked by sudden alternation. So, with this sake, we talked about the first agriculture and the long time of agriculture. By example, this is for stock wheat, it's a Cretan object. And we finished this part of the gallery with bread, and we have in our collection bread from many countries of the Mediterranean. The sake, you see the detail. And so, what are the alter singularities of the Mediterranean? I propose, and I'm sure that's not the only one, for one. The second, which seems to me evident, is monotheism. It's not so evident at all because, in fact, you have, by example, Akhenaten and Moses a long time ago, but you have Siddhartha Buddha in the extreme orient. So, it's not so easy to say it's only civilization, monotheism. Monotheism, sure, is in the Mediterranean, but the spiritual revolution exists also in Asia. So, if we think about the Abrahamic religions, it's typical Mediterranean, and we chose to show monotheism only around Jerusalem, because we have not enough place, and Jerusalem is really important. So, here, by example, we show pieces from the different holy places. Holy Sepulchre, Al-Aqsa, the Mosque, where Mohammed goes to the sky, an object from the wall of the temple for Jewish. And in this gallery, that's by example, a Jewish object which shows the wall of the temple. That's a model of the Holy Sepulchre coming from the 17th century. That's the object which shows the sacrifice of Ishmael for Abrahamic people. That's the sacrifice of Abraham for Jewish people, and that's the sacrifice of Abraham for Christian people. We have three ways in this gallery. One, for the Jerusalem of the past, with the Jerusalem of the prophets. Here you have a Muslim painting, a sheet painting, showing Mary. But you have Jesus, you have Mary, you have Mohammed, you have Moses. That time is the pastime of the prophets. The Jerusalem of the present is the Jerusalem of pilgrims and prayers. And Jerusalem of the future is for the three monotheists, Jerusalem of the end of time. That's like this, that structure, this gallery. And you can go from one point, which is a place of holy places, to the other one, which is the book which talks the story of these holy places, in an installation from a contemporary artist called Michelangelo Pistoletto. Here you have a place for Buddhists, because this is an installation. Here you have a place for Jewish Bible, Torah, Christian Bible, and Koran. And nothing here for people which are agnostic. So, the second singularity is about citizenship. It was for me a big question. Is citizenship really born and specific of Mediterranean? I can answer you today. Democracy is all over the world. You have pre-democratic society, by example, in America, where India has an assembly and decides war of peace in assembly. So, you have all over the world many people which have a kind of democracy. But the idea to connect citizenship, democracy with the city, is weak. So, we talked about citizenship. We showed, by example, two models. One of Babylon, here, and one of Athens. What is a city without citizenship? I'm sorry. What is a city without citizenship? It's only temple and palace. What is a city with citizenship as Athens? You have theater. You have agora. You have boulet. You have many things for citizenship. Here, I saw the Symposium of Greek. But I will go quickly. Here, you have magistra. To this image. At the center of the gallery, you have another strong idea. Many museums talked about citizenship. But when you say, maybe, that's a history of citizenship, people say to you, antique citizenship doesn't connect with modern citizenship. And I don't agree with that. That's why we do this presentation. For me, the question which is at the beginning of citizenship, and will stay until today, is that one. How is it possible that the other, which is not as me, can have the same right as me? It's true for Greek people. It's true today, if you think about it. So, to show this, we do that. Here, this is the wall of citizenship. Here, you have portraits, antiques. From Fayoum, from Asia, from other parts. Here, you have portraits, last century. And here, you have a big wall with nine ladies talking about their experience of citizenship. One from Egypt, that one. One from Israel, one from Tunisia, one from everywhere. Why ladies? Because in front of them, you have the symposium for Greek citizenship. And it's only men. And it takes a long time for people to think, yes, ladies are different from men, but nevertheless, they can vote and they can be citizenship. So, modern ladies answer to the old macho men. So, in this part of citizenship, you have one about Greek, born of citizenship, and more and more citizenship with Roma. The laboratory of citizenship, the city of Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Example, Venice, but also Marseille. The time of revolution, beginning with Corsica, was the constitution of Pascal Paoli. Continue with France, and we evoke a Spanish revolution. At the end, we are thinking about where are we today with the human right, with the International Declaration of Human Rights. And it's a question, because many people say human rights is for Occidentals, but other cultures don't have this view of human rights. And we answer in the gallery with a text, medieval text of Malia, African people, says we need the respect of the body. And we think, I have five minutes, it's okay, I will finish in five minutes. And we think in the gallery that everybody wants respect of the person. It's not specific of Occidental culture. So, you have here guillotine, which is death, punishment, and say first right is the right to the life. You have a part of the Berlin Wall, showing with Israeli and Arabic wall, to say freedom to go from one part to another is one of the right of men. So, we have many things about, we are thinking about the right of men. And we finish this part about citizenship with a video of Cristina Luca, which is a Catalan artist, and show freedom leading the people from Delacroix in a movie, but freedom go down and everybody try to kill her. So, the last, because we have not to finish with a pessimist view, the last part is an event, when Vasco de Gama arrived in India. And it's beyond the known world. So, we were really afraid to go on sea because it was really frightening. And the mermaid, before on death's end, was really a symbol of this frightening. Even if we have a curiosity cabinet, where we show porcelain, silk, aromatic plants, and many things Europeans want to have because it's really important for commerce. And that's why people go to the other part of the world. For example, this is noix de muscade. And here you have the laboratory of discovery with a map, with an instrument, with a boat. The boat is San Gabriel, on which Vasco de Gama arrived in India. A really small boat, if we think to Zanje, which was a huge boat one century before. And we show how built at the end the image of the Mediterranean with, for example, this popular view. Or with contemporary artists. For example, this milieu de table from Les Poiriers evokes a heritage of the Mediterranean. Thank you.