Mumbai + London: new perspectives on the ancient world

24 Apr 2025-11 Jan 2026

Overview

Three sculptures from cultures rarely seen side by side have been brought together from ancient Egypt, the Mediterranean and India as part of a groundbreaking project.

Co-curated with one of India's leading museums, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), this display highlights the Mumbai museum's ambitious Ancient World Project, realised in collaboration with the British Museum as part of a long-standing partnership between the two institutions. It reflects the varied ways ancient civilisations imagined the divine and gave it physical form, using the same approach as a recent exhibition at CSMVS. The next phase of the project, opening in Mumbai in December 2025 will look more widely at ancient India's relationship with the world around it.

Standing in conversation with each other, the British Museum sculptures – of the Indian god Vishnu, the ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhmet and the Roman god Bacchus (or Greek Dionysos) – pose intriguing questions around how global co-curation can unlock new insights. Does seeing these sculptures together change the way we understand them? What do they have in common and what makes them distinct?

While the gods of ancient Egypt, the Greek world and Rome are no longer worshipped, India has maintained its traditions of sacred sculpture and religious practice. Seeing their depictions together opens up a space for looking at and thinking differently about ancient cultures. The display highlights how, in contrast to the focus on the ideal human body in Greek and Roman art, Indian gods, like ancient Egyptian deities, often combine human and animal form to convey spiritual meaning.