Marble female head (above) from a statue. Mid-3rd to 2nd century B.C. Egypt, said to have been found near Alexandria. Head of a Ptolemaic King (background) as a Pharaoh, Egypt, Ptolemaic period, late 2nd or early 1st century B.C. Statuette of Harpocrates (foreground) Egypt, Early Roman period, 1st century A.D.

More than 200 objects drawn from the museum's collections will be presented, most of which have never been displayed before. Objects span more than 900 years, from the Ptolemaic period that followed the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., through Roman times to the early Byzantine era of the 7th century.

Included will be large Egyptian-style and Greek-style sculptures that are keys to understanding the art of Egypt in Greek and Roman times. Among these are royal and private portraits in marble, basalt, granite and limestone, coins with portraits of the Ptolemies and a rare group of gem portraits carved in a single Alexandrian workshop.

The exhibition is divided into four themes:
• Portraiture and the Royal Cult: an exploration of the use of the portrait by the Ptolemies and Roman emperors;

• Old Gods, New Guises: illustrations of the transmutability of gods and how the complex native religion shaped the Greco-Roman art of Egypt;

• Material, Style and Technique: an examination of the aesthetic quality of the art that resulted from the encounters among Egyptian and classical Greek and Roman artistic traditions;

• Funerary Art and Daily Life: a glimpse at burial customs from late pharaoic through early Christian times, including a recent gift of Egyptian papyriu from the IU Bloomington Department of Classical Studies.

Marjorie Venit, professor of art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland, will present a lecture, "Ancient Egyptomania: The Lure of Egypt in Greco-Roman Alexandra," Friday, March 26, in the auditorium of the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at 5:30 p.m., followed by an exhibition reception in the atrium of the IU Art Museum at 6:30 p.m.