Sicily -- an Exhibition at British Museum

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Sicily | Land of Reinvention; Charting change in the Mediterranean. Economist, Apr 23, 2016/
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... an-land-reinvention

Note:
(a) This is an exhibition review on Sicily; Culture and conquest. British Museum, Apr 21-Aug 14, 2016.
www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/sicily.aspx

(b) "Tancredi, the rebellious nephew in 'The Leopard,' pronouncing 'For things to stay the same, everything must change.' "

The Leopard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leopard
(Italian: Il Gattopardo; a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, published posthumously in 1958)
(i) The Italian surname Tomasi: "from a plural or patronymic [meaning "son of"] form of the personal name Tomaso, Italian equivalent of Thomas."
Dictionary of American Family Names, bu Oxford University Press,
(ii)
(A) Italian English dictionary:
* gattopardo (noun masculine): "serval, ocelot"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gattopardo
(B) serval
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serval
(sub-Saharan Africa)
(C) ocelot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocelot
(South America)

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(e) "Perhaps the greatest achievement of Roger's court is an atlas of the world created by an Arab scholar-geographer, Muhammad al-Idrisi. No originals survive, but two of the oldest copies are on show."

Tabula Rogeriana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rogeriana
(Written in Arabic and Latin and accompanied by maps, it presented the world as a sphere. It calculated the circumference to be 37,000 kilometres (22,900 mi) — an error of less than 10 percent; Ten manuscript copies "currently survive * * * including the oldest, dated to about 1325")

The tabula is defined in (c)(iii).

(f) "The one big Roman exhibit—a thrillingly spiky battering-ram from the decisive naval defeat of Carthage in 241BC"
(i) In (a), there is a gallery of photos of objects, under the heading "Highlight objects."  No 5 from the left is:

"A Roman bronze battering ram[:] In 241 BC, the increasingly powerful Roman Republic conquered Sicily, making the island the first of its provinces. The remains of several warships linked to the final battle have been discovered during underwater excavations off Sicily's west coast. This battering ram (rostrum) from one of the Roman Ships is decorated with an image of the goddess victory holding a wreath.  Bronze rostrum from a Roman warship. Find out more on Tumblr>  From the seabed near Levanzo, Sicily, c 260-242 BC. Soprintendenza Beni Culturali e Ambientali del Mare. (c) Regione Siciliana."

You can hardly see it -- the goddess -- which is slightly raised from the uppermost curve. See (iii)(C) below.

Click "Find out more on Tumblr" and reach (iii) below.
(ii) Levanzo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levanzo
(iii) The Battle of the Egadi Islands. British Museum, undated.
http://britishmuseum.tumblr.com/ ... f-the-egadi-islands
("The Punic Wars were a series of conflicts over supremacy in the Mediterranean – 'Punic' is derived from the Latin for 'Carthaginian,' and it referred to the city's [Carthage's] Phoenician roots")
(A) For Egadi Islands, see Aegadian Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegadian_Islands
(Italian and Sicilian: Egadi, Latin: Aegates, Greek: Aegatae; meaning the islands of goats)
(B) Carthage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage
([The English word Carthage is] from Latin: Carthāgō; Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt New City)
(C) The second photo is taken from the top looking down.

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(c) "The journey begins with the vibrant pre-Greek cultures, notably the Phoenicians [11th century BC - ], who also founded Carthage. Their craftsmanship is evident in a delicate beaten-gold bowl (600BC) decorated with six slender bullocks, identical down to their minuscule ribs. Onwards through Greeks [8th century BC- ], Romans [3rd century BC- ], Byzantines, Arabs and Normans to the polymathic Hohenstaufen King Frederick II, known as stupor mundi, the wonder of the world, during whose reign (1198-1250) sonnets were first written. * * * This exhibition focuses almost exclusively on the two periods of the richest material culture, the Greek (700-250BC) and the brief but astoundingly productive Norman (1061-1189AD). "
(i) a "gold bowl (600BC) decorated with six slender bullocks"
(A) See "gold libation bowl" in (a).
(B) libation (n; etymology)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/libation
(ii) Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
(1194 – 1250; Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily 1220-1250; of the House of Hohenstaufen; stupor mundi)
(A) (House of) Hohenstaufen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenstaufen
(a dynasty of German kings (1138–1254) during the Middle Ages; section 1 Name: "high Staufen" and Swabian Jura)
(B) German English dictionary:
* hohen (adj): "inflected form of [adjective] hoch [high])
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hohen
(C) Swabia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia
(is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany [not a state]; view map]
(D) Jura Mountains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jura_Mountains
(The name "Jura" is derived from juria, a Latinized form of a Celtic stem jor- forest)
(iii) Latin English dictionary:
* stupor mundi (proper name; [noun] stupor ‎wonder + [adj] mundī ‎of [the] world): "(historical nickname) Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250)"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Stupor_mundi
   ^ stupor (n): "stupefaction"
   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stupor
* tabula (noun feminine): "tablet, (by extension) map"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tabula

(d) "photographs of Etna smoking and the perfect Greek temples at Agrigento and Segesta * * *
(i) Mount Etna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Etna
(Latin: Aetna; is the tallest active volcano in Europe, currently 3,329 m (10,922 ft) high; section 1 Etymology)
(ii) Agrigento
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrigento
(is a city)
(iii) Segesta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segesta
(was a city)