the Informer

The Joel and Susanna Grae Antiquities Prize has been donated by Joel and Susanna Grae as the award to the winner of an ongoing competition.
The competition involves the submission of a project that examines one or more artifacts in the new collection available in the Sherman Museum of Jewish Civilization located in the Mortensen Library.

“Joel Grae, one of the donors of the antiquities wanted to encourage students to go and view the artifacts on display at the museum, and he wanted the students to have an opportunity to get even more involved through a competition at the university,” says Richard Freund the director of the Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies.
A submission can be a PowerPoint, photographic project or research paper that focuses on one or more artifacts in the exhibition, but students must go to the exhibition in order to choose the artifact for their project.

“There are so many different ways a student could go about doing the project – as there are so many different types of artifacts on display. Some examples are coins, statues, paintings, vases, even a 16th century Bible [and] a statue of a Babylonian goddess. The students have a broad variety of artifacts they can base their projects on,” explains Freund.

“This is the first time a type of competition involving an exhibition has been offered by the university,” says Freund.

After the submissions have been received, they will go through a judging process.

“The prize will be an archaeological artifact granted to the winner, and will be a surprise chosen by the Graes,” says Professor Freund.

Students with questions about the competition or prize can e-mail the Greenberg Center at mgcjs@hartford.edu or contact Freund at freund@hartord.edu.

Submissions for the competition can be a part of a course a student is enrolled in, within any part of the university, but must be submitted to the Greenberg Center no later than Friday, April 30, 2010.

“We wanted to make the prize available to all students – any student from any college within the University can participate in the competition,” says Professor Freund.
The prize will be awarded at a Greenberg Center event later this spring.

“There are no restrictions on the amount of submissions we will be accepting – we encourage students to get involved in the competition,” says Freund.

The grand opening for the collection of artifacts begins on April 1 at the Mortensen Library in the Sherman Museum of Jewish Civilization, and it will be on display every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., until April 7.

“The exhibition, and competition is really for the students, in order to get them to not only want to go to the event, but to get them inspired by the exhibition and history,” says Freund.

The exhibition is free and available to the public.

The Graes have donated numerous artifacts for display in the museum, including pieces that are from near eastern ancient history and religion. The pieces date back to as far as 2000 B.C.E. There are also recent artifacts that were made in the 20th century.