Roman Lar Student Project

As part of the fall 2014 course "The Lure of the Past: Collecting Antiquity”, Taylor Anderson '15 conducted in-depth research on the Museum’s small, Roman Lar. The Lar, a statuette that resided in a household shrine called a lararium, was a central domestic deity thought to protect the Roman home and family. In addition to compiling a detailed object research report, Taylor used the Lar as the inspiration for a virtual museum exhibition entitled “Beyond the Emperors: Life in the Roman Empire.” The exhibition incorporates a number of objects from the MHCAM collection as well as objects from other museums and features a model lararium. A video-tour of her Google SketchUp design is included below.