Curator’s Diary, Thursday 18th December 2008

Yesterday Dr Margaret Serpico came to the Museum to talk to the Egypt and Archaeology gallery content development team about her experiences acting as the Egypt consultant for the new displays of the Egyptian material at the Brighton Museum. The Brighton Egypt collection consists of c. 1400 objects and has never been displayed before. It was donated to the Brighton Museum by Francis Llewellyn Griffiths, who excavated with Flinders Petrie, and who had family in Brighton. Dr Serpico gave a fascinating account of the highs and lows of gallery redevelopment. The Brighton Egypt gallery is due to open at the end of March 2009.

I have  just about finished writing up the archaeology and Egypt gallery redevelopment  consultation report, drawing togther the discussions from the year-long audience consultation events. This will from one of the sources on which the gallery design brief will draw, and will be circulated shortly.

My other Egypt related activities this month have included attending the

Magic birthing tusk, 13th Dynasty, Ramesseum, Thebes

Egypt Exploration Society’s EGM and AGM (I am a trustee of the Society), and associated Study Day on Technology and Materials at SOAS, London. This included a talk by the British Museum conservators who have been working on the Nebamun paintings in preparation for the opening of the new Nebamun gallery early next year. I also attended the inaugral Ancient Egyptian Language and Texts workshop held at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, where papers were given on linguistics, textual analysis, the materiality of texts, and concepts of historical writing, amongst other things. Dr Richard Parkinson spoke on the Ramesseum papyri, an archive of medical and magical texts in The British Museum from a 13th Dynasty tomb under the Ramesseum. The associated artefacts are in the collection of The Manchester Museum – the birthing tusk depicted here comes from the tomb group and is on display.