Overview
- The Mumbai museum inaugurated the gallery on December 12 as a long-duration loan that will remain on view for three years.
- The display follows a thematic arc from the Harappan civilisation to the Gupta Empire, highlighting exchanges across India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Persia and China in trade, religion, writing and art.
- The project, developed over four years and facilitated by India’s Ministry of Culture, draws on loans from the Archaeological Survey of India, National Museum New Delhi, Indian Museum Kolkata and partners including the British Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Rietberg, Benaki Museum, the Al‑Sabah Collection and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens.
- CSMVS will use the loans to support curricula for more than 20 universities through a University Academic Programme developed with the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Cambridge Global Humanities Project, alongside a new NALANDA learning centre.
- Outreach plans include micro-exhibitions via the Museum on Wheels and the Trunk Museum projects and a forthcoming website with teaching resources, with notable objects ranging from a cat mummy from Roman Egypt to a terracotta bull from Mohenjo-daro and a bust of Ptolemy II.