Note to Correspondents

ENCOUNTER OF CIVILIZATIONS:  IBN KHALDUN EXHIBIT OPENS AT HEADQUARTERS

 

An exhibition titled “Encounter of Civilizations:  Ibn Khaldun” will be on display in the Main Gallery of the General Assembly Visitors Lobby on Monday, 18 December, for a period of five weeks.

The exhibit explores the life and work of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a social historian and author of Andalusian descent, as well as the political, economic and social framework existing in the fourteenth century between East and West, and between Europe and the Arab-Maghrib world linked by the Mediterranean Sea.

This exhibition attempts to stimulate historical and cultural relationships between the Mediterranean and Arab countries.  It also deals with several traumatic events and conflicts that shook the fourteenth century, as well as the struggles for the consolidation of the Spanish kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.

On display are large graphic panels demonstrating the chronology of the fourteenth century and the situation of the states around the Mediterranean.  It will show numerous artefacts such as a portolan chart of Abraham Cresques (1375, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris), a Catalonian world map (1450, Biblioteca Estense of Modena, Italy), a Book of Hours (handwritten sheet, France, 1410), a fragment of ataifor(thirteenth century, Toledo), a Persian plate (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries), a Mudejar stamped earthenware jar (fourteenth century, Toledo) and a Nasrid key (fourteenth-fifteenth century, Granada).

The exhibition is organized by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX), the Regional Government of Andalusia ( Spain) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).  El Legado Andalusí Foundation, an institution affiliated with the Department of Culture and the Department of Tourism, Commerce and Sport of the Regional Government of Andalusia, is responsible for the exhibition design.

This exhibit was produced and organized with the support of the United Nations Department of Public Information.

For more information on United Nations Exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at tel.:  1 212 963 8531 or Liza Wichmann at tel.:  1 212 963 0089.

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For information media • not an official record