Experiment and Experience: Ancient Egypt in the Present

May 10-12 2010

Faraday A , Swansea University

Are you interested in ancient Egypt ? Are you interested in ancient technology or crafts?

This is a conference where academics, craftspeople and the general public, in fact all those interested in ancient Egypt or in technology can meet and share their common enthusiasm. All ages and abilities are welcome. We have an exciting array of demonstrations and talks lined up for you, from flint knapping to flower arranging, from textiles to ship building, not to mention woodworking, stoneworking, manufacturing ritual clay artefacts, shipbuilding, antler bow manufacture, glassworking, an oral performance, and of course mummification!

Experimental archaeology applies the scientific method, and has the potential to be a powerful research tool while being interdisciplinary. Along with experiential approaches, it is a perfect medium for education and widening participation. This conference aims to integrate the arts, humanities and sciences. Through a series of lectures, workshops and practical demonstrations we will explore the value of a hands-on approach to understanding the past, in particular, Ancient Egypt.

Hosted by CEMA, Egypt Centre and the Department of History and Classics, Swansea University 9am Monday 10th through Wednesday 12th May 2010 Faraday A , Swansea University

Download the PDF here: Experiment and Experience, University of Swansea

Please see http://www.swan.ac.uk/egypt/conference010.htm for the full announcement, programme and booking form. For further details, please contact Kasia Szpakowska (k.szpakowska@swansea.ac.uk) or Carolyn Graves-Brown (c.a.graves-brown@swansea.ac.uk), or phone the Egypt Centre, University of Swansea on +44 (0)1792 295960

Curator’s Diary, Thursday 4th February 2010

I have been getting on with some collections work in the last few days, in order to sort and pack groups of objects that are transferring from the general Archaeology collections into Egyptology. This material includes lamps dating from the Late Period to Islamic Egypt, terracottas, and lithics. This week I have worked on sorting and packing the lamps (as you can see in the picture), which were photographed last year by volunteers. Dr Lisa Maher from Cambridge University spent some time last week looking at the Predynastic lithics, and I also had a visit from Dr Amin Benaissa from Oxford University to look at one of our papyri.

Work on the Ancient Worlds (Archaeology and Egyptology) galleries continues. Last Saturday we had the first meeting of the focus group, representatives from various difefrent community and interest groups who took part in the general consultation in 2008. The group will meet every few weeks to assess and discuss aspects of the content and design work. On Monday we had a day with a primary school, St James, looking at various aspects of the Egypt and Archaeology collections and getting some idea of their perception of the collections and what we should do with them – a lot of fun!

Term has started, so I have been meeting up with students involved in project work and Egypt-based long essays. Tomorrow evening I am giving a lecture to the Huddersefield Archaeological Society on ‘Royal Cities and Workers Settlements’ – the material from Kahun, Amarna and Gurob in the Museum’s collection.

And then it’s the weekend, have a good one!

Re-Writing Nefertiti: The History and Historiography of Egypt’s most Famous Queen

Dr Joyce Tyldesley

3pm, Wednesday 10 February

The Kanaris Lecture Theatre, The Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester

Followed by refreshments

No Charge, all wellcome, no need to book.

For details email joyce.tyldesley@manchester.ac.uk

For over a decade Nefertiti, wife of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten, was the most influential woman in the Bronze Age Mediterranean world. Suddenly she disappeared, vanishing as if she had never been.

With the decoding of the hieroglyphic script at the beginning of the 19th century Nefertiti’s name was restored to scholars but she remained a shadowy figure. A succession of egyptologists excavating at the Egyptian site of Amarna did much to reconstruct her story, but it was not until 1924, when a painted bust of Nefertiti was put on display in Berlin Museum, that the general public became aware of her existence. Western Europe, already experiencing a bout of Egypto-mania following the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb, immediately hailed Nefertiti as one of the most beautiful and fascinating women of all time.

This Showcase Seminar will consider the distorting effect that the Berlin head has had on the public perception of Nefertiti, before reviewing the archaeological evidence for her life and death.

LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY. EGYPT AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD

19-21 September of 2010, Cairo – Egypt

International Colloquium on Geoarchaeology in Egypt

Geoarcheo2010-circular2

Geoarcheo2010-registration

Curator’s Diary, Friday 8th January 2010

Happy New Year!

This is the first week back in the Museum after the break, with the snow closing Manchester University on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, and temperatures registering as low as -17 degrees overnight last night!

At the Museum I have been working on the content development for the Ancient Worlds (Egypt and Archaeology) galleries. For Egypt, our current approach is to look at different periods and subjects of Egyptian history and culture through the eyes of contemporary individuals, for example, Egypt in the Late Period through the eyes of the temple singer, Asru – what her life would have been like and what was happening in Egypt and the wider world at this period. Some of the gallery development team, myself included, are travelling to Amsterdam next week to meet

Byzantine Period lamp (40745)

the designers, Opera, and take the content development a step further. We will also visit some museums to get inspiration for different interpretative approaches.

Collections work continues on re-storing the 700 or so lamps dating to the Late period-

Islamic Period, and catching up with enquiries on metalwork and objects from Deir Rifeh and Amarna.

I was due to give a lecture for the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society tomorrow but the weather has forced it to be cancelled, hopefully to be rescheduled at some point. On Saturday January 16th I am talking to the Leicester Ancient Egypt Society at the New Walk Museum, 2pm, on the gallery redevelopment plans.

Geoarchaeology: An International Journal – 25th anniversary

Geography and The School of Environment and Development at Manchester University has been the home of Geoarchaeology: An International journal for almost three years. The editorial office left North America for the first time in May 2007 and has been based in Manchester ever since. This Wiley-Blackwell journal is now 25 years old and a series of events in 2010 will mark this anniversary. The first issue of 2010 is now online and can be accessed via the link below. It includes an editorial setting out the origins of the journal and some recent developments in this field where many researchers in the humanities and geosciences interact:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/36011/home?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

If anyone is snowed in and in need of some reading material, all the papers in the first issue are available as free downloads. Keep a look out for events and perhaps also some free drinks in 2010.

Later this year (2010) there will be a Virtual Issue on Egypt and the Nile Valley to tie in with the conference in Cairo in September.

‘Portrait of Egypt’ – Exhibition at Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery

Adele Wagstaff

Aza, dry point sketch

9 January – 28 February 2010

‘Portrait of Egypt’ is a collection of works resulting from Adele Wagstaff’s recent painting
trips to a small community on the edge of Luxor, in Egypt. The exhibition brings together
paintings, drawings and etchings inspired by the character and beauty of the Egyptian
people, and a series of prints inspired by the sculpture and wall reliefs of Hatshepshut’s
Temple. The portrait paintings in the exhibition depict the wonderful variety of Egyptian
characters who Adele met during her visits, and all are painted from life.

Museum opening hours are Mon – Sat 10-5, Sun 2-5
Tel number 01302 734293

Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, Chequer Road

STUDY DAY: MUMMIES, SCIENCE & EGYPTOLOGY II

Saturday 6th February, 2010

Further characters from ancient Egypt – How modern scientific investigations and archaeological research is helping to reveal more about the lives of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. Professor Rosalie David will present the early pioneers of science in Egyptology and Natalie McCreesh will describe the history of mummification.

Then introducing the ancient Egyptians:

Ramesses II: the pharaoh who travelled to Paris

Horemkenisi: high priest of Amun at Karnak

Meresamun: a temple singer in ancient Egypt

Aretirikhetes: the Ptolemaic mummy

Presented by:

Professor Rosalie David, Natalie McCreesh and Roger Forshaw

KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, The University of Manchester

For further details, please contact Roger Forshaw: roger.forshaw@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Curator’s Diary, Thursday 3rd December 2009

I’m writing this from Edinburgh on a day off visiting friends. This afternoon I’ll go to the Museum of Scotland to meet a friend who works there, and tomorrow head back to Manchester.

Work at the Museum has been focussed on developing content ideas for the new Ancient Worlds galleries. I created a first draft of a key object list of the Egyptian and Sudanese material, which has gone to the designers, Opera, who are based in Amsterdam, in advance of our next meeting with them on December 16th. Last week I was in London for  a couple of days, and I gave a presentation at the British Museum on the Manchester Museum’s international strategy, as part of the International Training Programme which brings curators to the UK from all over the world to learn curatorial skills at the British Museum and a regional institution, of which Manchester is one. I talked about the work of my colleagues, such as Dr Dmitri Lugonov, chasing jumping spiders in Siberia, and Andrew Gray, breeding rare and endangered species of frogs at the Manchester Museum, as well as insitutional initiatives, such as links with Wuhan Museum in China. That evening was the book launch for my book, Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers, at the EES offices in London, which was great fun (and thank you to everyone who came). The following day I attended the second day of a conference on Curators and Communities, at the Horniman Museum, organised by Wayne Modest, the Anthropology curator there, and Viv Golding from Leicester University.

This week I led a seminar with the Salford University Museum Studies students on ethics, displays and human remains, met with my PhD student, and had a second meeting with the Manchester University Museum Studies students who are on a placement project at the Museum. Their project is to develop the content for a display about the lives of two individuals, one living in Roman Egypt and one living in Roman Manchester, which will feed into the content for the Ancient Worlds Galleries.

Two more weeks of term and then things will quieten down!

Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers book launch, November 26th

The Egypt Exploration Society will be hosting a  launch evening for my book, Soldiers, Sailors

Stela of Ramose, Deir el-Medina (Manchester Museum 1759), one of the stelae discussed and illustrated in the book

and Sandalmakers. A Social Reading of Ramesside Period Votive Stelae (Golden House Publications) on Thursday 26th November, 7-9pm.

Copies of this and other Golden House Publications (http://www.goldenhp.co.uk/) will be available at a discounted price, with a  short presentation on the book and a glass of wine. Attendance is free, but please contact the EES to confirm attendance:

Email: contact@ees.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880

For further details go here: http://www.ees.ac.uk/events/index/17.html