News
Gold on show in New York
30 November 2006
A new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York pays homage to the formation, uses and mythology of gold.
On display are 700 pieces of gold, some as mined or found, others sculpted into ornate forms.
The exhibition traces how gold has been historically used in commerce, as well as its symbolic uses as a mechanism of exchange between potentates.
The exhibit is the latest in a series delineating the cultural and scientific sides of natural materials including diamonds, pearls, and amber.
Gold is unique, though, says the museum's president Ellen Futter.
'Athletes strive for gold medals, kindergartners look for gold stars, musicians hope for gold records,' she says.
'Prospectors panned in the Wild West, pirates pillaged for it and Renaissance painters applied it to their canvases as halos to indicate supreme holiness.'
Exhibits include the visor from the helmet Neil Armstrong wore on the moon because it reflected heat and radiation better than any other material, a 4,500-year-old golden headband from Iran and a gold Aztec fire deity from Mexico.
© Adfero Ltd
On display are 700 pieces of gold, some as mined or found, others sculpted into ornate forms.
The exhibition traces how gold has been historically used in commerce, as well as its symbolic uses as a mechanism of exchange between potentates.
The exhibit is the latest in a series delineating the cultural and scientific sides of natural materials including diamonds, pearls, and amber.
Gold is unique, though, says the museum's president Ellen Futter.
'Athletes strive for gold medals, kindergartners look for gold stars, musicians hope for gold records,' she says.
'Prospectors panned in the Wild West, pirates pillaged for it and Renaissance painters applied it to their canvases as halos to indicate supreme holiness.'
Exhibits include the visor from the helmet Neil Armstrong wore on the moon because it reflected heat and radiation better than any other material, a 4,500-year-old golden headband from Iran and a gold Aztec fire deity from Mexico.
© Adfero Ltd
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