Curator’s diary, Friday 6th November 2009

I’m back in the office after two weeks in Egypt taking a lecture tour round all the major sites. The group of 22 people, myself and my wonderful guide, Hesham, visited the sites at Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel and in and around Cairo. It was very hot indeed, hitting 42 degrees at Abu Simbel, but the group kept on despite this, and everyone had a wonderful time. Here are some images taken on the tour – the middle one is of me with my guide, Hesham.

Since getting back into the office, I have been getting on top of research enquiries into Predynastic pottery, funerary stelae and Old Kingdom tomb lintels. In addition, I have continued with a series of Introduction to Ancient Egypt lectures for the MSc students on the Biomedical and Forensic Egyptology course at the KNH-Centre, and prepared teaching sessions for the Archaeology Department on the ethics of displaying human remains in museums. I also met with Dr Bill Manley, a senior curator at the National Museums Scotland, to discuss our ideas for the development of Egypt content for the Ancient Worlds Galleries – NMS are planning to redevelop their Egypt galleries over the next five years. This coming weekend will be dedicated to completing a conference paper for publication, and then beginning to think about preparing a paper to be delivered at a conference to be held at the Horniman Museum in November, on curators and communities, discussing the subject of authority in relation to museum exhibitions and content.

Next week I will be in London on Friday for an Egypt Exploration Society committee meeting, and the heading up to Edinburgh to give a lecture on Saturday to the Egyptology Scotland society, entitled ‘Art, Sex and Death in ancient Egypt’,at 2.30pm at the Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL (http://www.egyptologyscotland.com/events.php).

Have a good weekend!

Big Saturday Oct 2009: Ancient Egyptian Technology

On Saturday 17th October, the Museum hosted an ancient Egyptian Big Saturday looking at technology, with everything from mummifying oranges to making faience and constructing a shaduf.

Senior Conservator Sam Sportun painting on a wedjat-eye, or Eye of Horus, symbol of protection

Dr Lindy Crewe, the Museum's Cypriot archaeologist, oversees excavation of artefacts

Demonstrating how to use a shaduf to lift water

Building pyramids and mummifying oranges…

Big Saturday: Ancient Egyptian Technology

Saturday 17th October, 11am-4pm

Smash pots, learn to apply Egyptian eye make -up and how to make faience, build a pyramid and a shaduf, mummify an orange, with story telling, object handling and much much more, at The Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.

Free entry

Curator’s Diary, Wednesday 7th October 2009

We hosted the Egypt in its African Context event at The Manchester Museum last weekend, 3-4

Egypt in Africa: a Sudanese cat on excavation

October 2009, and heard papers from scholars from the United States, Nigeria, Spain and the UK, discussing the African cultural aspects of ancient Egypt, with much hearty debate. The event included a wine reception and a screening of the documentary film by Louis Buckley, Nubian Spirit: The African Legacy of the Nile Valley. Many thanks to all the delegates for making it such a successful and illuminating event. We filmed some of the key speakers, and will make some of the footage and images available in due course.

Term has started here at Manchester University,  and I and other staff have been involved in tours and teaching sessions in the Museum, making the collections available as much as possible to students and staff. The documentation of the Egypt collection has also continued, with volunteers Trisha and Rachel working on the Roman Period lamps. Research projects are beginning, examining the characterisation of faience and kohl, amongst other things.

Outside the Museum, in my role of chair of the Egypt curators Subject Specialist Network, ACCES, we ran a seminar of managing archive material related to archaeological collections at the office of the Egypt Exploration Society in London on Monday – the letters, photos and note books from excavations provide an invaluable resource for undretsanding the collections housed in musuems today.

And tomorrow we interview designers for the redevelopment of the Egypt and Archaeology galleries (to be known as the Ancient World galleries) – all in all, a busy time!

FIlming Asru at The Manchester Museum

A German film crew have been in the Museum this week, filming the mummy of Asru with

Moving Asru from the gallery

Professor Rosalie David for a short film to be shown in October on German TV, and also to make footage for a longer film on phramacy and medicine in ancient Egypt, showing how the analysis of mummies can help us find out more about life in ancient Egypt. On Tuesday evening, we removed Asru from her case and took her out of her coffins. She spent the evening in Conservation, and the following morning was transported to the KNH-Cenre for Biomedical and Forensic Egyptology where examples of types of analysis were filmed and Professor David talked about her work. Asru was returned that afternoon and reinstalled in her case. Today, the crew filmed in the Herbarium, looking at plants from ancient Egypt that would have had medicinal purposes.

Egypt in its African Context: Programme

The programme for the Egypt in its African Context event to be held at The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 3-4 October 2009, is now available:

Egypt in its African Context programme

The event will be of interest to anyone interested in ancient Egypt and the Sudan, African Studies, Black History and museums.

Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers…

Cover: Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers

Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers. A Social Reading of Ramesside Period Votive Stelae (London: Golden House Publications) ISBN  978-1-906137-10-6 £30

I’m back in after my break to the good news that my book is out…

The book looks at how votive stelae from five Ramesside period sites, including Deir el-Medina, Abu Simbel and Pi-Ramesses, might be linked to specific events in the lives of the dedicators, from festival attendance, promotion at work and pleas for fertility, and act to commemorate for all eternity incidents of personal and social significance .

The front cover image is of stela dedicated by the Senior Scribe, Ramose, from Deir el-Medina, in the collection of The Manchester Museum.

Curator’s Diary, Friday 24th July, 2009

Today is my last day in the office for three weeks – holiday time! It’s been a busy couple of weeks for visitors to the Egypt collections.

Dr Gerry Scott, ARCE

Last weekend, Dr Gerry Scott, the Director of the American Research Center in Egypt, visited The Manchester Museum with his wife, and Bob Partridge of the Manchester Ancient Egypt Society. Here we are standing by a temple pillar of Ramesses II in the entrance hall of the Museum, in Bob’s photo.

Another visitor, Dr Beatrix Gessler from Heidelberg, called in as she was passing through the city on her way to the airport, so we spent some time in the stores looking at material, and discussing potential loans between our institutions.

We said goodbye to the participants in the International Curatorial Training Scheme (British Museum), Joyce and Aba from Ghana and Hayam and Hesham from Egypt (see image below), who headed back to London for the last two weeks of their stay in the UK. They are flying back to their respective countries today. We have made a film of them discussing their experiences in Manchester and this will soon be available on YouTube.

Hesham, Joyce, Sam (our Senior Conservator), Aba and Hayam

Funding for Egypt related projects from the EES

Funding is available for Egypt-related excavation and research projects from the Egypt Exploration Society. Follow the links or paste them into your browser for further information:

http://ees.ac.uk/fieldwork/Excavation_Fund_Grants_2009.htm

http://ees.ac.uk/fieldwork/otherprojects.htm

The Pharaohs, by Joyce Tyldesley

The Pharaohs (Quercus, £20.00)

Dr Joyce Tyldesley directs and teaches the online Certificate in Egyptology, based at the KNH-centre for Biomedical and Forensic Egyptology, and also works on Egypt-related programmes at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester.  Her new book offers compelling profiles of the great kings of Egypt together with an exploration of aspects of culture, society and archaeological heritage of ancient Ecypt, sumptuously illustrated.