Ancient Egypt & Nature’s Library: What is an ‘onomasticon’?

Manchester Museum’s newly-refurbished Nature’s Library gallery, due to reopen on Saturday April 26^th, will showcase four million natural specimens to illustrate how the natural world has been collected and catalogued and to explore the diversity of those collections.

The ancient Egyptians also catalogued the natural world around them in the form of onomastica, a type of ancient Egyptian text made up of word lists of many different things from sky and earth. The various categories focus mainly on nouns including birds, fish, food, towns and cities, plants, minerals, buildings, agriculture and different occupations. The selection of the words, and how they were ordered, shows us how the ancient Egyptians divided up and classified their world – a bit like an ancient compendium of the universe. Onomastica can be compared with modern encyclopaedia however these ancient lists only contained the words, and did not include any descriptions for those words.

Acc. no. 7220 – a painted scene from a palace floor

Although we don’t know exactly why these lists were made, it is possible that they were intended to be used as training exercises for scribes when they learned to read and write. They may also have been made to act as a ‘bank’ for knowledge; a place where the ancient Egyptians could list and store all of the words which made up their world.

The earliest known onomasticon is the Ramesseum Onomasticon (Berlin Papyrus 10495) which was found in a tomb which possibly belonged to a lector, a specialist in ritual and magic, dating to the late Middle Kingdom (c. 1800-1700 BC). This tomb contained important papyri and objects, and it is possible to see some of those objects today in the Egyptian Worlds gallery at Manchester Museum. The Ramesseum Onomasticon originally contained over 300 words including birds, fish, food, towns and human anatomy. Because the onomasticon probably belonged to a lector, it is possible that the lists may have been read aloud and performed during ceremonies or rituals.

A dedicated display illustrating onomastica and the idea of the ancient Egyptian classification of the universe can be seen in the Exploring Objects gallery, which contains several natural specimens including mammals, birds, fish and minerals. These ideas will also be presented in new digital format – featuring the superb artwork of Gina Allnatt - accessible from the Manchester Ancient Worlds website, due to be launched very soon, which will combine photos, illustrations and text to tell the story of onomastica and why they are so important for the study of both ancient Egyptian and natural history.

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Curator’s Diary 19/04/13: Fragments of a Shattered Image

One of the most exciting aspects of working in a Museum is the occasional discovery of long-forgotten gems that lie in storage and which are often only brought to light by the chance enquiry of an inquisitive researcher. Such was the case this week when Anna Garnett, our British Museum ‘Future Curator’ trainee and I went in search of objects bearing ancient Egyptian plaster, to take samples for a researcher. Lists of object numbers, provenances and dates gave some indication of the sort of objects we were looking for but – because many of the items in the collection have still not been photographed – the physical identification of items often yields a surprise.

I was pretty sure that I knew all the “key” pieces in the collection. These tend to be the ones that are mentioned in publications, because of their own significance or their relationship to other objects of note. These connections are not often obvious, and usually require book-based research. Yet, sometimes you open a drawer, register the form or decoration of something and immediately recognise it as part of a larger whole. Thus it was with genuine amazment that I opened a drawer to discover a piece of one of the most famous paintings to survive from ancient Egypt. I don’t mind admitting that I let out an audible gasp of surprise. How could I not have read that THIS was here?!

Princesses in the Ashmolean. Note the size of the adult heel!

The colours were a clue but the patterning was unmistakable. A small-ish piece (20 x 15cm) of mud brick, with thin painted plaster coating from Petrie’s excavations at Amarna. Number 8740. It is part of the much larger scene featuring two small princesses – daughters of Akhenaten – from a palace wall now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Petrie (Tell el-Amarna, 1894, p. 15) describes “the patronising air of the elder sister chucking the little one under the chin” and speculated that the paintings of the two figures is “perhaps the only use of light and shade by the Egyptians.” The princesses sit beside the much larger-scale foot of an adult – Akhenaten or Nefertiti - showing how large the original wall scene must have been. Petrie records many smaller fragments of painted plaster belonging to the wall – and that is what we must have in Manchester.  Our fragment seems to represent part of a patterned fabric – a cushion? – in the reds and yellows distinctive of this scene.

Other bits are doubtless scattered in collections around the world. But the thrill of recognising just one small part compares with Petrie’s joy at first sight of the whole.

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Curator’s Diary 13/3/13: Early Photographs of a Prince’s Journey in Egypt

Stela of Nakhtmontu © HM Queen Elizabeth II

Last week I attended the opening of a new exhibition, ‘From Cairo to Constantinople’, at the Queen’s Gallery of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The exhibition presents photographs taken by Francis Bedford – the first official photographer to accompany a royal tour – on the trip around the Middle East made in 1862 by the then-Prince of Wales (later Edward VII).

The Royal Collection houses a number of objects that the Prince brought back from his travels, several of which are displayed in the exhibition. The most striking is the black granite statue of a 12^th Dynasty queen (to an unnamed king), called Senet. Sadly the piece, which is less than half-life-size, lacks an exact provenance and the face of the statue has been damaged and restored in modern times. The Royal Collection is currently lending several objects to our temporary exhibition, ‘Breed: The British and their dogs’, and it was a pleasure to see some of their Egyptological material on display.

In addition to ancient scarabs mounted in gold as jewellery presented to Edward’s wife Princess Alexandra, the exhibition contains two further ancient Egyptian antiquities. The first is a painted wooden stela of early Ptolemaic date belonging to a priest named Nakhtmontu – mounted in a rather fanciful, Egyptianising gilt frame. The Prince records the stela’s discovery in his diary: “I was looking at some excavations… behind the Memnonium [the Ramesseum]; the Viceroy had been kind enough to give permission for them, and that everything that was found I might have; only a small mummy and a tablet were however found, wh[ich] I took with me.”

Late Period wooden stela, Acc. no. 10939.

Although the ‘concessions’ awarded to the Prince were not scientifically recorded, it is satisfying to have some idea of provenance of this object. The Ramesseum location matches both the Theban titles mentioned in the text and known Late – Ptolemaic Period burials in the area. A similar, if somewhat earlier, stela in Manchester may derive from a similar context – all that is recorded is that it comes from the collection of a Lady Marten, and was given in 1953 (right).

Finally, perhaps most important in terms of its connections to other known objects, is a set of sheets cut down from the papyrus of a man called Nesmin, showing the Amduat, found ‘upon a mummy in a tomb…’ Only one sheet (out of seven) is on display, but highlights the crisp penmanship of scribes producing the best papyri at this period. Nesmin is most likely to be the same man that owned the early Ptolemaic Bremner-Rhind Papyrus in the British Museum.

The superbly displayed objects in the exhibition combine with the photographic and diary record to really bring to life this royal tour. The photographs themselves are a valuable record of many monuments before they were ‘cleaned up’ for more popular tourism, and they compare well with those of the Zangaki brothers and others (prints of which we found at the Museum in 2011), taken around the same time.

As a record of the exhibition and of the tour, the catalogue is a sound investment and highlights the key role of temporary exhibitions of this nature in putting on view material that is rarely, if ever, seen.

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The mystery of the spinning statuette

Acc. no. 9325. Photo by Paul Cliff

Most Egyptologists are not superstitious people. When I first noticed that one of our Middle Kingdom statuettes (Acc. no. 9325) had been turned around 180 degrees to face the back of its case in our new Ancient Worlds galleries, I wondered who had changed the object’s position this without telling me. The Egyptians themselves would have appreciated the concern to make visible for passers-by the text on its back pillar – a prayer for offerings for the deceased. Yet the next time I looked into the case, the statue was facing in another direction – and a day later had yet another orientation. None of the other objects in the display had moved. The case was locked. And I have the only key.

 The statuette had always intrigued me. It entered the Manchester collection in 1933, as part of a donation of five objects from Miss Annie Barlow of Bolton – three of which at one time were considered to be modern forgeries.

The inscription on the back pillar reads: “An offering which the king gives to Osiris, Lord of Life, that he may give a voice offering, consisting of bread, beer, oxen and fowl for the Ka-spirit of’. As is known for other statues of this date and type, the man’s name – Nebsenu(?) - is inscribed on the front of the statue’s base. He bears what Alan Gardiner called as “obscure” title: Hry (n) tm. The distribution of the inscriptions suggests that the statuette was prefabricated with the standard offering formula on the back pillar and that the man’s name was added later to the base.

Logical attempts to explain the statues movement centre on the subtle vibrations caused by outside traffic, causing imperceptible movement. Lill, a colleague on the visitor services staff, suggested that perhaps the man wanted us to say the prayer for him – yet when this text is visible his name is impossible to read. What is very strange is that the statue has spun in a perfect circle – it hasn’t wobbled off in any particular direction. The intriguing suggestion that the statuette was carved of steatite and then fired may imply that it it now vulnerable to magnetic forces. But is so, why did it not move on its glass shelf in pretty much the same position in the old Egyptian Afterlife gallery?

I lied – others do have a key to the case, and it is just possible that someone is playing a trick. But I doubt it.

The simplest solution seems to be to apply a tiny amount of museum wax to the base to stop the movement. But what if the statue continued to keep moving? What would our explanation be then..?

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Curator’s Diary: CT-scanning Demetria with the BBC

On Thursday the 31^st of January, a team from the Museum returned to the Manchester Children’s Hospital to CT-scan two more of our 24 human mummies. This time we were accompanied by a BBC film crew, who recorded proceedings for a segment on The One Show.

The mummy of Demetria had been chosen – shamelessly, I admit – as she was the most outwardly attractive for a TV audience. She had been X-Rayed by the Manchester Museum Mummy Project, led by Rosalie David, in the 1970s but there was lots more information that could come from a modern CT-scanner.

Some of the team (Sam, Ray, and John) lift Demetria onto the scanner. With all the resin and gilding, she’s very heavy.

We know the name of Demetria because it appears – in Greek, along with the name of her husband Icaous – on the headband of her elaborate gilded covering. Demetria’s mummy (Acc. no. 11630) was discovered in 1910 during excavations by the British School of Archaeology in Egypt at the site of Hawara. Like many other mummies for the site, Demetria died under Roman rule – in the First Century AD. Her burial arrangements are a typical fusion of Graeco-Roman styles – in her hair, jewellery and attire – and traditional Egyptian imagery. This expresses a mixed expectation for the afterlife: as a fashionable, contemporary woman, but also someone who depends on Egyptian ideas about resurrection and eternity. The outer surface of Demetria’s wrappings is still brightly painted with scenes of mummification and the protective Egyptian deities. She stands on her bound enemies, depicted in paint on her cartonnage footcase. Such an approach utilised as many motifs for survival after death as possible.

Initial results of the CT-scan revealed a fairly well-preserved body, with a distorted spine and crushed rib-cage that imply post-mortem injuries. Gilded studs appear in the wrappings, but there was no sign of other jewellery – though at this period little would be expected. The results – 10s of 1000s of individual images – will need considerable study to disclose further information.

The distinct glow of gold. Not posed at all.

Having the BBC film the procedure revealed much more about modern expectations of ancient Egypt than it did about Demetria. The opportunity to showcase the reinvestigation of the mummies – which is fairly standard, and has been practiced around the world for more than a decade – was a superb one. If nothing else, up to five million people now know about the superb Egyptian holdings, and a little of the history, of the Manchester Museum. Yet, despite the polish of the short film and the intelligence, professionalism and obviously deep understanding of John Sergeant, the framing of our 5 minutes of fame re-enforced most of the old tropes about Ancient Egypt: an exotic, potentially scary place, morbidly obsessed with mummies, material value, magic, the weird – a side-show. The attention span of the average viewer of such primetime, magazine-style coverage is not long – nor should it be expected to be. Hopefully those interested by this glitzy snapshot will visit the Museum and learn something more of Ancient Worlds than just mummies and bling.

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Curator’s Diary 19/12/12: Nefertiti and Amarna in Berlin

I have just returned from a trip to Berlin, where I took the chance to see a major new exhibition at the recently reopened Neues Museum: ‘In the Light of Amarna: 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery’. The exhibition was timed to coincide with the centenary of the discovery of the famous painted plaster bust of Queen Nefertiti, on the 6th of December 1912. So soon after Manchester’s own centenary and because of our rich Amarna holdings (we have almost 800 objects from the site) it seemed an ideal opportunity to revisit the Berlin Egyptian and Sudanese collections.

The exhibition space is split between two levels. It opens with the excavations of the Deutsches Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG) at Tell el-Amarna, led by Ludwig Borchardt, which discovered the bust. Borchardt’s brief diary entry contains what is still an apt description of the bust today: “No use describing it, you have to see it.” Indeed, having established that the bust is in many ways indescribable, the exhibition as a whole is arranged to build anticipation: only at the very end does the visitor come face-to-face with Nefertiti herself.

Yet the key strength of the display is the much-needed context it gives to this singular piece of sculpture. Borchardt’s excavations for the DOG are placed within the setting of early 20th century Egyptian archaeology. The dig was funded by James Simon, a Jewish entrepreneur who was the son of a wealthy cotton merchant – circumstances very similar to Jesse Haworth’s support Petrie’s work in Egypt, which formed the basis of the Manchester Museum Egyptology collection. Of the many captivating archive photos in this section, one showing the Nefertiti bust and other Amarna sculpture in Simon’s home (before being given to the state museums) was particularly striking.

The contested nature of the finds division that led to Nefertiti being brought to Berlin is not ignored, and the role of the German press in helping to form popular opinion is particularly well illustrated. In the current exhibition, particular emphasis is placed on the fragility of the bust. Indeed, the exhibition is essentially formed around Nefertiti – rather than Nefertiti being moved to the centre of the exhibition. Given the condition of the bust, it seems unlikely that she’ll be travelling very far any time soon.

Pottery moulds for faience objects such as this (Acc. no 2557) were a common find at Amarna. This examples bears the names of Nefertiti.

What fascinates me about the (very brief and atypical) Amarna Period is not so much the protagonists themselves, their beliefs or suggested abnormalities, but rather the fact that those characters exert such a disproportionate amount of interest for the general public and academic community alike.

The new exhibition acknowledges this interest and – while presenting the famous bust in its proper archaeological context – explicitly addresses the fact that the bust has often been taken out of context, most notably attested by Nefertiti’s numerous appearances in pop art and kitsch. The decision to place the ‘modern reception’ section of the exhibit close to the gift shop was well-advised, showing how much Nefertiti remains a commercial icon.

Replica of Nefertiti’s painted bust in Manchester

The entrance to the main section, on the upper level of the exhibition, is dominated by a stylised shaft of orange Aten-like light. Using a necessarily small selection of key objects, the prelude to Akhenaten’s reign is covered, before life (as opposed to death) at Amarna is explored in detail. The large numbers of objects on display reflect the density of finds: countless fragments of stone, faience, glass. In its object selections, the new exhibition parallels many of Manchester’s holdings. All of this material, illustrating various aspects of life at the city, succeeded in providing the famous bust with a realistic setting among living people. The famous ‘workshop’ of the sculptor Tuthmose is seen as just one of several areas at Amarna engaged in producing objects for the elite, whether stone sculpture, pottery or glass and faience objects.

Manchester’s replica bust of Nefertiti – created in the 1930s and one of a limited number of ‘official’ copies – remains very popular. In the old galleries, many visitors were mislead into thinking that this was the real bust (despite being labelled as a replica), perhaps because it was included alongside genuinely ancient objects from Amarna. By including our replica bust, along with other Amarna copies, in our ‘Fakes and Replicas’ cases in Ancient Worlds, we hope to allow visitors to experience something of the indescribable bust in three dimensions. Yet we also want to emphasise the desirability of this particular image, and highlight its unique place in the replication of Pharaonic visual culture.

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Frogs in Ancient Egypt

An Old Kingdom carnelian frog amulet from Qau el-Kabir. Acc. no. 7122.

We recently had a visit from Joy Kremler, a Curatorial Assistant at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. Joy was visiting Manchester to discuss the process of redisplaying archaeological and Egyptological collections in advance of plans for a refurbishment at her own institution. Joy also has a particular interest in frogs, especially in the early apperance of frogs in Egyptian iconography and their use as amulets. It was a great opportunity, therefore, for Joy to meet my colleague Andrew Gray, our Curator of Herpetology, and see some of the many living frogs we have in our Vivarium at the Museum.

Middle Kingdom ivory wand or birthing tusk from the ‘Ramesseum Tomb’. Acc. no. 1801.

Joy was keen to point out although the frog in ancient Egypt is often associated with the goddess Hekat, the appearance of frogs in iconography is much earlier than the firm association with this deity. In fact, the frog is one of the earliest animals to be attested as amulets in the Predynastic Period. The Egyptians most commonly referred to frogs by the onomatopoeic term ‘kerer‘. Frog spawn had a resonance with Egyptian ideas about regeneration, and the hieroglyph of a tadpole stood for the number 100,000. Images of

Late Period copper alloy votive model offering table with a frog ‘spout’, showing a man pouring a libation. Acc. no. 11039.

frogs appear alongside much more fearsome animals on Middle Kingdom ivory wands or birthing tusks, several examples of which we hold at the Manchester Museum. Frogs also decorate objects as spouts, implying a close connection with the Nile flood and the flowing of water. Frogs continued to feature throughtout Pharaonic iconography and even appears as a symbol of Christian resurrection in the Coptic period, when terracotta lamps often bear its image.

Joy’s visit was an excellent chance to view items in the collection which have often been overlooked, and to discuss frogs and their associations in ancient Egypt in comparison with modern knowledge of their behaviour.

You can find out more about frogs at the Manchester Museum here, on Andrew Gray’s popular Frog Blog.

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Curator’s Diary 30/09/12: CIPEG meeting in Brussels

This week I attended my first meeting of CIPEG (The International Committee on Egyptology, part of ICOM – The International Council of Museums), an annual event now in its 29^thyear. The conference was held in the impressive surroundings of the Cinquantenaire Museum in Brussels, and provided an excellent opportunity to meet and discuss matters of common interest with other curators working with Egyptology collections. I presented a paper on the new Manchester Museum galleries, discussing in particular how we highlight both current and past research on the collection, and an update on the ACCES network.

Participants at the CIPEG conference in Brussels. Thanks to Paula Veiga for the photo.

Papers covered a range of topics, from acquisitions histories to museum-led fieldwork projects. In addition to updates on current and planned redevelopments and exhibitions, it was interesting (and somewhat reassuring) to hear of the challenges being faced across Europe. Unfortunately, a common theme was the pressure felt by cuts in government funding. The case of local authorities responsible for museum collections selling objects was raised, and the dangerous precedent this could set. Despite the generally gloomy picture, it was good to hear of the creativity and inventiveness of some museums in these financially-straitened times. The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest was one such example, using competitions for schools to design museum exhibitions on an Egyptian theme. This not only interested young people, it equipped them with a broad range of learning outcomes and skills applicable to a variety of jobs. New uses of digital technology, which we will make extensive use of in the Ancient Worlds galleries, are being considered in a number of other museums. Each institution has its own unique circumstances, so it will be interesting to compare digital developments and how they have been adapted to individual museums in the future.

CIPEG will meet again at the next International Congress of Egyptologists, in Alexandria in September 2013.

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Curator’s Diary 20/9/12: Ancient Egypt in Macclesfield

Detail of the figure of Shebmut, from her cartonnage mummy case – a highlight of the Macclesfield collection.

Amidst all the intense preparations for our Ancient Worlds re-display, a highlight of this week was a visit to the West Park Museum in Macclesfield – home to almost 500 ancient Egyptian and Sudanese objects. The collection is largely the result of the collecting activities of Miss Marianne Brocklehurst, a friend of Amelia Edwards (founder of the EES), daughter of Macclesfield’s first MP, and an avid Egyptophile. Marianne and her travelling companion Mary Booth (collectively known as the ‘MB’s in Amelia’s accounts of their travels), had both a keen eye for Egyptian antiquities and the money to afford several fine objects.

The collection is now under the charge of Honorary Curator Alan Hayward. Alan is an extremely knowledgable guide to the objects in Macclesfield, and an authority on the MBs in Egypt. A highlight of the collection is the 22nd Dynasty cartonnage mummy case of a temple singer of Amun named Shebmut. Marianne gives a hair-raising account in her diary of buying the case (with mummy inside) in western Thebes and having to jettison its embalmed occupant for fear that the smell of the mummy would arouse suspition from the crew of the dahabiya upon which the MBs were travelling!

1891 watercolour sketch of the clearing of the Deir el-Bahri mummy cache

Another highlight of the visit was seeing Marianne’s profusely illustrated diary and watercolour sketches – including the only depiction of the clearance in 1891 of the Deir el-Bahri cache of priestly mummies. It was particularly pleasing to be able to introduce Cynthia Sheikholeslami, a friend and colleague from Cairo who has extensively researched the cache, to Alan – and the original copies of the sketches.

A very useful digital version of both Marianne’s sketches and a catalogue of the objects at Macclesfield is available on CD at the Museum. I hope to present some of the parallels between the Macclesfield collection and material in Manchester sometime in the future.

Alan will be giving a free lecture on ‘The M.B.s in Egypt’ on Wednesday 10th of October, at 7:30pm in the Heritage Centre, Roe Street, Macclesfield. Call 01625 613210 for more information.

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Curator’s Diary 31/7/12: Gleanings from Gurob

A.S. Griffith’s 1910 handbook of material from Kahun and Gurob.

On Sunday, I attended the annual fundraising conference of the Gurob Harem Palace Project – a joint mission (Univeristy of Liverpool, UCL, Copenhagen) investigating the New Kingdom settlement site near the Faiyum that housed royal women. I enjoyed my visit to the site in April, which – though little is preserved above ground – gave me some sense of where our objects had come from. The Manchester collection contains over 700 objects from Gurob, many of which were published in a basic list form by Agnes Griffith (sister of famous Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith, who once taught at the Victoria University of Manchester) in 1910. Therefore, I was keen to attend the Gurob conference and to present an overview of the Museum’s Gurob material.

Petrie’s arrangement of objects from Gurob soon after they were found; our duck vessel is bottom right.

Meetings such as this provide an excellent opportunity to catch up on the latest discoveries, both in the field and in museums. A highlight was being made aware of digitised photographs from Petrie’s excavations (and of objects therefrom) currently available on the website of the Griffith Institute in Oxford. As Jan Picton pointed out, these arbitrary or aesthetic arrangements of objects often informed the plates and drawings that appear in Petrie’s excavation reports. It was exciting to see several objects now in Manchester shortly after they were first discovered. A personal favourite is our faience stirrup jar (Acc. no. 659) – a Mycenean shape adopted by Egyptian craftsmen  and decorated with Egyptian duck motifs.

The duck vessel today (Acc. no 659)

It was also very interesting to hear a presentation by Dr. Valentina Gasperini, of Bologna University, who has been visiting the Museum over the last few months to work on imported pottery found at Gurob. I’m very grateful for her input into the interpretation of these objects. Many of these will appear in the new Ancient Worlds galleries where, along with material from the comparable site of Amarna, they will illustrate life in a New Kingdom royal city.

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