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8. Harald Ingholt and the Museum of Ancient Art at Aarhus University

Harald Ingholt returned to Denmark from Beirut in 1939, at the outbreak of Second World War. He held a position at Aarhus University as a fellow in Semitic philology, though only for a short time. In 1940, he left the university and Denmark and fled to America to rejoin his family, who had gone from Beirut directly to America in 1939.

During his years in the Near East, Ingholt conducted fieldwork in various places, such as Palmyra and Hama, and he also traveled extensively in the region. During some of his excavations and trips, he bought various objects. Some of the objects he had excavated himself in Palmyra and purchased for Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek’s collection in Copenhagen. Other objects he bought for himself to keep. Today such a practice would not be possible, but then it was accepted.

The Objects in the Museum of Ancient Art, Aarhus University

It was in 1952, according to one of the entries in the Museum of Ancient Art’s database, that he donated eight smaller objects to the museum. These are not exceptional objects in any way, but they are still interesting and give some insight into the region’s local cultures ranging from prehistoric times into the Roman period.

Most of the objects come without any information about their original provenance (place of origin), most likely because Ingholt bought them from dealers in Beirut who did not have the information. Two objects come with provenances ascribed to them: one, a steatite fragment of a monkey figurine, supposedly came from the ancient coastal city of Tyre in Lebanon; another was a clay camel figurine with a woman on it, from the inland city in Syria, Hierapolis (Membij), which was famous for its sanctuary dedicated to the Syrian goddess (Dea Syria).

Six of the objects are figurines of various kinds, spanning from the Middle Bronze Age to the Roman period (inv. nos 0470, 0472, 0473, 0474, 0475, k495). The seventh is a model wagon (inv. no. 0471), and the last object is a bronze fibula from the Early Iron Age (inv. no. 0476).

While most of the objects are not particularly significant, a few are worth highlighting. One male figurine clasps what seems to be a bird in his arms – something often encountered in figurines from the region in this period. The steatite fragment showing a crouching monkey might well have been an import from Egypt.