The year 2000 marks the Miho Museum's third year. Last year objects from our collection traveled to Europe for two special exhibitions. The first, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, was an overwhelming success, drawing over a quarter-million visitors. Later, the works were on view at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, The Netherlands, in an exhibition that closed on March 19, 2000. The reception for the Rijksmuseum's exhibition was met with great enthusiasm. Among the 56 items in the exhibition were objects from ancient Egypt, Western Asia, Greece, and Rome. All of them were exceptional works of art. Yet, the Egyptian wooden statue of Nakht, a silver cup from Assyria that had never been exhibited to the public before, and the silver rhyton with a caracal cat protome, thought to be from Iran or Central Asia, received particular attention. This summer these works will return to the Miho Museum where some of the finest works from our collection will be exhibited in a special homecoming exhibition.