Masks memory ang magic

Museo
Malacologico
Piceno

Shell is certainly one of the most intelligent structures which the nature has invented. Man’s association with shells reaches back into prehistory. People who has had them available have used shell in large amounts: oyster drills in the Mediterranean, thorn oysters in America, cone shells in Africa, pearls oyster in Polynesia, basket shells in Papua New-Guinea.In the exhibition there are creative and artistic objects of ethnic groups from Africa (Dogon and Kuba), Asia (Naga, Kuchin, Akha), Middle and South America (Maya, Chimù) and Melanesia (Chambri, Abelam). The pieces of the ethnic cultures reveal us about their organized societies and elaborated rituals.
-Africa, a continent where shells have been used most for the decoration of tools and to manufacture the ritual articles. In this continent shells have more significations than anywhere else.
-In Asia there exist very diversified groups of shells which diversity coincide with geogrphical limites: Philippines, India, area of The Golden Triangle and finally the zones most near to Europe; the countries of the Middle East.
-Oceania: Shells; in an area formed from thousands of arcipelagos spread in the  Pacific Ocean, are the ones with multivarious values.
-America: The heritage which the pre-Columbian people in Mexico and South America have left us, gives us now in the modern era a possibility to “talk” with our ancestors by means of archaeology. The exhibition “Maschere, Memoria e Magia, testimonianza da quattro continenti” has its own fascination which certainly catches the attention of the visitor with its richness  and with the beauty of the objects rappresented.