D is for ...Delphi... n ... Dallas

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

 D is for Delphi 

Delphi is an archaeological precinct of great significance in Greece, recognised as a  UNESCO heritage site for its wide spread impact on the ancient world.  It is a sanctuary to the god Apollo, first developed around 8th century BCE. The ruins that we see today are from a reconstruction in the 4th century BCE, after a fire destroyed the original temple. 

The Delphic Oracle was revered from the 8th century BCE onwards till the Roman Emperor stopped the worship in the late 4th century CE with the rise of Christianity and abolition of the perceived 'pagan' practices. 

The ruins of the temple

The Treasury of Athens. There were many such buildings
erected by the various city states, especially after war victories,
 as a mark of gratitude. These show how influential  the Delphic
Oracle was in the Ancient World. 

The Oracle was considered the centre of the world - the omphalos or
navel - and all kinds of people Greek and non-Greek, king and commoner
sought Delphic aid in all kinds of situations, small and huge. 

Delphi was a sacred site long before the sanctuary of Apollo came
to be located here. Archaeological evidence shows the Mother Goddess
Gaia was worshipped at the site as far back as 1600-1100 BCE.

Socrates at the Delphi site museum. Legend goes that the Oracle
gave him a rather ambiguous answer to his query!

 

The Charioteer of Delphi. A life size bronze statue dated to 470 BCE,
uncovered during the dig and now displayed in the onsite museum. It 
is part of a group of sculptures commemorating a victory in the pan-
Hellenic games which featured athletic and equestrian competitions.

Read more about Delphi and its onsite museum by clicking here. 

The archaeological site at Delphi gets around 1 million annual visitors and it is estimated that the museum is visited by around 40% of them i.e. 400,000 people yearly.

D is for the Dallas Museum of Art

If I were allowed just one word to describe the Dallas Museum of Art I'd choose 'neat.'  In terms of collection size, it does not have the heft of the big guns like the Met (1.5-2.0 million), or even the MoMA (200,000+) or the Boston MFA (500,000). What it does have is a collection of 25,000 art objects that represent an impressive 5000 years of human history, artistry and creativity. 

Chuffed to find this fictional portrait of Queen Semiramis
the first piece as I entered. Created by William Wetmore Story
in 1873. Story was born in Massachusetts and worked and died
 in Italy. Semiramis is a frequently encountered character in the
Middle East.

Rock crystal ewer from Fatimid Egypt, 10th century.
One of the star attractions of the Keir Collection of 
Islamic Art on long term loan to DMA. 

Ceramics from the Keir Collection

Fritware bottle from Iran, 16th century. Immediately
hit a chord as India has huge Persian influences. Also,
I have lived in the MENA region for 25+ years.

Seated ruler in ritual pose. Mexico, 900-400 BCE.
From the gallery of Indigenous Art. The collection 
spans 5000 years in time and from Canada to Andes
geographically.

Gold crown with standing figures. Peru, 800-200 BCE. 

Crosses from Ethiopia. Silver, 18th-20th century.

From the African Arts gallery. I spent a long time
in there too, it was as close as I was going to get to
Nigeria/Africa for the foreseeable future...

Untitled (Big/small figure) 2004. Styrofoam & paint.
By Tom Friedman. Born 1965, Missouri, active
 in Northampton, Massachusetts. 

The origins of the Dallas Museum of Art go back to the founding as the Dallas Art Association in 1903. Read more about the DMA and explore the collections, events and activities by clicking this link here. 

It attracts over 600,000 visitors annually and I'm happy that I could count myself among them couple years ago. 

There's also the Dubai Museum, housed in the Al Fahidi Fort, the oldest surviving building in Dubai and the main museum of the United Arab Emirates. Visited it a couple of times, remember going there with my child as a kiddie kid while we lived in Dubai and then again while I was resident in Bahrain and gone to meet up with a schoolfriend in Dubai. Not as comprehensive or intriguing as the Bahrain Museum, which I like better, that's just my personal preference. The entire Arabian peninsula has a very deep history, it's just that a lot of it isn't well explored/documented and available for public consumption. 

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Did you know that museums have developed from a desire to collect and display artworks,  exotic specimens, things of historical/cultural significance and objets d'art? Read about the development of museums as public spaces in this article. 

Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026