The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia

Wow another fantastic Exhibition. on Mesopotamia which will include some awesome treasures can't wait.

As The British Museum is involved with this one it should be better than the King Tut display. My feeling after seeing that display was that I would never go to another display at the Melbourne Museum. You really need to be honest this time. Also I hope you do not use Ticketek booking as if the price of entry is not expensive enough, Ticketek charge in addition to the entry price, a few dollars more for us to print the entry ticket on our home computers. That is disgraceful and dishonest.

This looks like it is going to be another great exhibition. I look foward to it.

Can't wait for this one. Another great exhibition to look forward to.

Ooh!! Only just recovering from the fabulosity of Tutankhamun - this will be spectacular too, I've no doubt!

Is this exhibition like Tutankhamun?

We were so terribly disappointed with the Tut display. It was a huge deal for us to come and bring all the children, and we had done alot of reading up and preparation before we visited. So little of what was shown actually came from Tut's tomb. It would have been better entitled : Treasures of the Pyramids. The artifacts were stunning but title of the display was very misleading, and the cost was very steep, for what it was. I was also disgusted at the ues of Ticketek and the extra they charge for the privilege of printing my own tickets. Come on Museum Vic - if you want members, treat us with some respect, please.

I would have to agree with Rose. I thought the King Tut exhibition was misleading and disappointing...I enjoyed the information given by the museum outside the exhibition more.

The Tut exhibition was nothing short of a fantastic miracle!! Imagine watching so closely such glorious artifacts and displays in the vicinity of your own backyard. Well done; you guys do a great job. As for the Wingers, surely they have not left our shores before and travelled to third world countries to veiw what you had to offer here in Melbourne. The hard work and the logistics behind it is much appreciated. We are truly a lucky country!

Will be great if it's even half as good as the Tut display. Only bad thing is that these great displays end up in Melbourne and not Sydney. Still, easier to travel to Melbourne than Egypt, so can't complain. As for complaining, I can only assume those who weren't satisfied with Tut are not that into Ancient Egypt and would have been better off at the Queen Victoria markets looking for cheap trinkets to adorn their Balinese huts.

The Sumerian gods have spoken! All roads lead to Melbourne. Every man, woman and child in Australia should see the 'Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia' exhibition.

Tuts was vey disapointing -

I can't wait to see the 'Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia'. I thoroughly enjoyed the King Tut exhibition as well as the Titanic one the year before. Such a lot of hard work went into them. Anyway, I now have an excuse to come down to Melbourne for a couple of days.

Have thouroghly enjoyed the TITANIC and King Tut exhibitions and looking forward to The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia. Thanks to the Melbourne Museum for bringing these exhibitions to Melbourne.

We loved both Titanic & Tut exhibitions. It is a another reason to come down to Melbourne yet again !!!!!!!! Roll on May ... I also celebrate my 50th Birthday that weekend.... :O)

Finally a little recognition to the Ancient Assyrians, this should be great and I'm looking forward to it!

A trip to melbourne is now a must, looking forward to this amazing exhibition. And @ Zaia, yes it's a very well overdue.

What a wonderful experience I have had with Titanic and Tut. The era that these artefacts were used in, makes our lives much more appreciable. Looking forward to another Melbourne holiday.

I thought that the King Tut exhibition was good. The dispay of information at two levels was a good idea. However, I thought that the entry price was a bit high and I was disappointed that the concession price did not apply to Senior Card holders. I agree with others about the rip-off by Ticketek for the privilege of printing a ticket on my own printer

Having seen the Cairo Museum late last year, I thought the Tut display was well done. And for all you whingers there WERE priceless and special artefacts from Tut's tomb. He wasn't the only pharaoh and a minor one at that. The other stuff that came with the exhibition was lovely too. Be grateful you got to see it. Don't like your chances of a peaceful visit to Egypt any time soon.

Thanks to MuseumVictoria for presenting two great exhibitions in Titanic and Tut - looking forward to the next one. Great that you've taken consideration of the feedback and will improve the process and price.

I'm really excited about the Mesopotamia exhibition and really hope it will include some Pazuzu statues or related artefacts.

As an Assyrian, I can't wait to see my heritage and the treasurers from the land of my forefathers. I still remember the excitement from the last time that Melbourne welcomed the exhibition of ancient Assyria. I hope this time the exhibition could off a wider range of the treasure in which Assyria has to offer. I hope this could be a reminder to Australians and the rest of the world that Assyrians to date live in Mesopotamia (Bet -Nahrain) or the land between the two rivers, but unfortunately suffer from prosecution and genocides. Hope to witness everlasting peace in that corner of the world.

I have to agree with Chris. I was in Egypt late last year too. The Cairo Museum is massive beyond belief. Melbourne Museum's King Tut exhibition provided an excellent and encompassing experience that gave visitors a summary of what you'd see in Cairo. Plus, the Melbourne experience gave visitors an environment which was not overcrowded by thousands of pushy visitors. I agree with the point about King Tut too. The only reason why he is so famous is because he was very young and died of suspicious circumstances. If you really want to experience Ancient Egypt, you need to look beyond King Tut's tomb. Get an education on King Ramses II or Queen Hatshepsut who announced herself as a Pharaoh after her husband died (becoming the first female Pharoah). The exhibition in Melbourne was marketed with the angle of King Tut because that's the Pharoah many people in the Western world want to focus on. If you want the complete King Tut experience, then you really need to go to Egypt, go and see all of his treasures in the Cairo Museum then travel via overnight train to his tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. If you're relying on one exhibition to give you the full King Tut experience then you're going about it the wrong way unfortunately. On a brighter note, I can't wait for The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia!

I have been to the last 3 exhibitions in a row (and a couple beforehand)and I believe they get better and better. Thank you for bringing these treasures to our shores, they certainly fuel the travel bug in me and I appreciate the effort of all staff involved. I saw Tut 3 times with various visitors coming to stay over from interstate. I am happy that feedback has returned the ticketting function to the Museum and costs will be more reasonable. I look forward to next May and the new exhibition.

Yet another reason why Melbourne has it over Sydney. Looking forward to it!

This is amazing. As an Assyrian Australia i am excited to see the work and life of my ancestors here in Australia. Thank you Museum Australia, thank you, thank you, thank you. Cant wait!

YES! Assyrian exhibition, we brought the world into the light. Its good to finally be recognised. As a Assyrian Australian i will prob never see my parents home land Iraq (Assyria) so thank you Australian Museum. Please lets not forgett the current Assyrians loosing their lives in Iraq, for being Christians. Merry christmas to all god bless.

Great to see so many good things about Tut, I have to agree! Though also sad to see so many negative comments about Tut... if you research like most people do you will actually see what the exhibition was about. Museum did a great job of hosting the exhibition though they were only the ones renting out the space, with AEI and IMG the ones who actually toured the exhibition. It is hard to please everyone so the exhibition was quite general to suit many different audiences. It was a great achievement for Melbourne to have these artifacts and many years hard work to make it happen. I doubt we will see another exhibition like it. I look forward to Mesopotamia, though it will have a very different vibe from Tut as it is Museum run this time.

Saw both Titanic and Tut, and greatly enjoyed both. Although I did encounter a few negatives with each exhibition, they were mainly a result of the enormous numbers of visitors that had to be catered for. Given the huge popularity of the events, I think MV did a pretty good job, and the quality of the objects on display was fantastic. I'm really looking forward to seeing the new exhibition!

I have enjoyed previous exhibitions although the Ancient Egyptian lacked in information. There appeared to be just rooms with antiquities then another room of antiquities. It would have been great if more information was given to link Ancient Egypt to contemporary times i.e. Akhenaten being the first in ancient history to establish a monotheistic religion which predates Zoroastrianism and Judaism. I hope that the Mesopotamia exhibition emphasizes the importance of Mesopotamian culture which extends to modern day such as agriculture, language, cities, religion, and government, mathematics, writing, literature, architecture, warfare, empire and astrology!

As I retired in 2007 I have had the pleasure of seeing all three of the temporary overseas exhibitions. However I am surprised that Pompeii hasn’t been mentioned in recent correspondence, as to my mind it was a stunning event and the standout of the three, though I certainly enjoyed them all and look forward to Mesopotamia. I also took the opportunity last October to do the Royal Exhibition Building tour. Don’t think I’d been inside it since I sat matriculation exams way back in 1959 and I don’t recall taking too much notice of the surroundings on those occasions! Quite the best value $5.00 I’ve spent in a long time. What a magnificent building it is and thank God it’s World Heritage Listed.

After seeing all the fabulous past exhibitions, I'm very excited for this one! Melbourne Museum should be commended for bringing such amazing exhibitions! Pompeii, Titanic, Tutankhamen and now Mesopotamia! Thank you!

Thanks to Mr Layard for shipping all he could find to England in 1800s for us to see now, what he couldn't take or couldn't find at the time,is being damaged by the local new inhabitants. Will enjoy it, thank you Melbourne Museum.

I have been to the British Museum and loved seeing the Ancient Assyrian Artifacts. I cant wait to attend to see the wonderful treasures of Mesopotamia

I am looking forward to this exhibit, although I feel some of the same apprehensions as the so-called "whingers" who were disappointed with the Tut-Ankh-Amun exhibit. I had seen the treasures of Tut-Ankh-Amun in their home in Cairo in 2008. I was nonetheless excited to see them again when they arrived here. I understood the dangers of transporting certain pieces of the collection and did not expect to be as overwhelmed as I was in the Egyptian Museum, but did not expect to be as underwhelmed as I was. The vast majority of the artefacts on display were mediocre and in multiples. In particular, there was no need for the sheer number of shabtis and ankhs (Tut was buried with hundreds of them) and especially not in separate cases or display rooms with the very same descriptions. The pottery and furniture was beautiful, but certainly some of the least spectacular. The only exceptional pieces were the alabaster perfume vessel in the form of a bull, and the larger set of canopic jars. The descriptions (and I comment as someone who studies ancient history) barely offered explanation as to the significance of each item, whether about who it belonged to what it's real purpose was (practical and symbolic). The most precious item on display I felt was the relief of Akhenaten and Nefertiti worshipping Aten, but I was disappointed to see that it also lacked the information that would have made it truly stand out. Many people simply walked past it after a quick glance (heartbreaking). I wish the rest of the exhibition had been as informative as the initial presentation about the discovery of the tomb, and the explanation of the mummification ritual. I'm sure then people would have appreciated what was there much, much more (when I left, there were many people in the makeshift shop outside expressing their disappointment to one another, especially the children and teens). I sincerely hope this coming exhibit will make up for the Tut-Ankh-Amun one. I am pleased to hear that you've taken visitor's feedback into account and I still have a lot of faith in the museum. See you in May.

OMG I am so excited about this exhibition. This aspect of ancient history was my area of study years ago at uni and I can't wait!

I have to agree with some of the nagative comments, however we enjoyed the tut exhibition because we went in with very low expectations knowing how the melbourne museum exhibitions are generally particularly the china terracota soldiers which were incredibly disapointing (everything was faux!!!! why bother then).

Being a descendant of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians, I am greatly anticipating the arrival of these artifacts as I will have a chance to immerse myself in my culture. I encourage everyone to come along, our history is fascinating to say the least and is well worth the trip.

Really excited for this exhibition, will definitely come down from Sydney to see it. Some amazing history was created in the land between the two rivers, where some of the most astonishing civilizations were birthed. The Sumerians are believed by many scholars to be the cradle of civilization and came up with one of the greatest inventions of all time which is writing, the Assyrians who were well known for their brutal battle tactics and amazing history and discoveries. Then you have my favourite, the Babylonians who built one of the greatest cities in history, including one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. Been Chaldean myself, I’m really excited for this exhibition and I'm glad our history is getting displayed around the world and getting some attention, so well done to the organisers.

I can't wait to see these great artifects of my nationality

This exhibition makes me proud to see my ancestors and how they lived, Proud to be a Mesopotamian Assyrian Babylonian!

I am tempted to berate those who are writing such negative comments, particularl regarding the Tut exhibition, however I will resist. What I would like to say is simply.....thankyou. I doubt that will ever be able to see those treasures in their home environment so I really appreciate being able to see them here in my own home town. Looking forward now to the wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia.

Cant wait for this exhibit! Thank you Melb Museum for bringing us something of our Assyrian history. My family and I are Assyrian and there is no way we'd be able to go to the UK to see our country's artefacts and culture on display. Definitely looking forward to it and am telling all my Assyrian friends!!

I agree with Tamara way back in November 2011. The King Tut exhibition, whilst a good display, was disappointing in my mind with only a few items from his tomb out of the thousands of items found there. But, saying that, I thank the Melbourne Museum administration for bringing these exhibitions to Victoria for those people who are not able to travel overseas.

Thanks to Museum Victoria for bringing this exhibition to Melbourne. This is a great opportunity to display the Iraqi rich history, in Iraq there are around 10,000 historical sites across the country, as Mesopotamia is the land between the two rivers. Sumer in the south, Babylon in the centre and Assyria in the north. Theses treasures are for everyone to see and admire the land who gave so many inventions to the world.

Is so excited to be able to bring my children and husband to learn something of my beloved Assyria's history.