Travel Pick: Art and Archaeology in United States
The World of 1607

Sub-Saharan African kingdoms,the Ottomans as a world power and Russia during 1607-1613 are among seven topics featured in the fourth and concluding cycle of The World of 1607 exhibition at Jamestown Settlement, a state-operated museum of 17th-century Virginia.
 
The World of 1607 fourth cycle also considers the beginnings of globalization, scientific achievement in Europe and the Islamicworld, and the relationship of church and state.

Created for last year's 400th-anniversary commemoration of the founding of America's first permanent English colony, The World of 1607 has been presented in four distinct cycles, each with its own topics and iconic artifacts.  The exhibition focuses on worldwide intellectual and cultural developments during the  late 16th and early 17th centuries and portrays Jamestown, Virginia, as part of a larger world of discovery, strife, expansion, innovation, artistic expression and cultural exchange.

Ninety objects from museum and private collections in Denmark, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States areexhibited in the fourth cycle. Among the finely crafted decorativeand ceremonial objects, books, maps, scientific instruments, and military and equestrian accouterments are an elaborately carved 16th-century African ivory saltcellar from the National Museum of Denmark; a 17th-century Ottoman musket from a private collection; a 16th-century Russian painting, "Icon of the Motherof God of Yaroslavl," from the State Historical Museum in Moscow;and a portrait of Emperor Mikhail Feodorovich, the first Romanov tsar, from The State Historical and Cultural Museum-Preserve,"The Moscow Kremlin."

Also on exhibit are a 16th-century map of the world from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection; a 14th-century Persian astrolabe from the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum; a 17th-century globe-shaped ivory compass sundial, similar to the one shown by Captain John Smith to the Powhatan Indians in 1607, from the British Museum; and a 16th-century chalice and paten used by the Reverend Robert Hunt at All Saints Church in Old Heathfield prior to his departure from England for Virginia in 1606 as chaplain of the expedition that established Jamestown.