Petra Tickets on Sale Tomorrow

November 30, 2004 == MEDIA ADVISORY
<<<NOTE: Video of the exhibit is available from Calvin College>>>

Tickets go on sale tomorrow for one of the most amazing exhibitions ever to
come to West Michigan.

Petra: Lost City of Stone is the most comprehensive exhibit ever presented on
the ancient, Middle Eastern city of Petra and its creators - the Nabataeans.

It will be at Calvin College in its Prince Conference Center from April 4 to
August 15, 2005.

Tickets will be available December 1 by calling 616-526-7800 or 800-PETRA05.

Petra opened in New York City in October 2003 for a nine-month showing and
then traveled to Cincinnati for a September 2004 to January 2005 run.

Calvin President Gaylen Byker, who serves as co-chair for Petra: Lost City of
Stone, has been a frequent visitor to the Middle East, including several trips
to Petra. So when Calvin had the chance to host the exhibit (becoming one of
only five North American venues), he jumped at the offer.

"The Petra exhibit," he says, "is a great fit with Calvin's educational
mission and with Calvin's fast-expanding international involvement. The city of
Petra is one of the very best archaeological sites in the world for
experiencing what life was like in the Middle East at the time of Christ.
What's exciting for me is how the exhibit allows people to experience Petra -
its history, its art, its architecture, its engineering prowess and its
importance in the Middle East, a region of the world that we all need to better
understand. For us to have the opportunity to bring this to West Michigan is
too good to pass up."

June Hamersma, Director of Calvin's January Series and the other Petra exhibit
co-chair, says simply: "The exhibit represents a true gift to this community
and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience one of the greatest
archaeological complexes in world history."

Hamersma notes too that Petra: Lost City of Stone was almost a decade in the
making, having first been conceived in 1994 by the Cincinnati Art Museum, which
then joined forces with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New
York City in a monumental effort to gather the 200 exceptional objects that
comprise the traveling exhibit.

Items on display include stone sculptures and reliefs, ceramics, metalwork,
architectural elements, terracotta or ancient water pipes, artworks in various
media and other fascinating artifacts. All are on loan from collections in
Jordan and throughout Europe and the United States. Many are on display in the
United States for the first time.

All told the exhibit will be spread out across 7,000 square feet at Calvin's
Prince Conference Center, which will undergo significant modifications to host
Petra: Lost City of Stone.

Among the highlights of the exhibition are several pieces recently discovered
by archaeologists working in Jordan, as well as a monumental bust of Dushara,
on public display outside Jordan for the first time. The bust is almost four
feet tall and weighs some 2,100 pounds!

Another highlight at the exhibit was actually unearthed by a graduate of the
college: Grand Rapids based archaeologist, teacher and photographer Neal
Bierling, who has worked on Petra and helped excavate a marble Byzantine church
pulpit that will be on display at Calvin.

The exhibit is the first major cultural collaboration between Jordan and the
United States. It is organized by Cincinnati Art Museum and American Museum of
Natural History, New York under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania
Al-Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Air transportation has been
generously provided by Royal Jordanian.
     
<<<NOTE: Video of the exhibit is available from Calvin College>>>
For more on Petra, including pictures, etc, see www.calvin.edu/petra
Received on Tue Nov 30 11:00:37 2004