The Egypt Centre collection will
forever be associated with the pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry
Solomon Wellcome (1853–1936). Wellcome had a passion for collecting medically
related artefacts, aiming to create a Museum of Man. He bought for his collection
anything related to medicine, including Napoleon’s toothbrush, currently on
display at the Wellcome Collection in London. But he also collected non-medical
objects, including many from Egypt. He was a keen archaeologist, in particular
digging for many years at Jebel Moya, Sudan, during which time he hired 4,000
people to excavate (fig.
1). Wellcome was one of the first investigators to use kite aerial
photography on an archaeological site, with surviving images available in the
Wellcome Library.
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| Fig. 1: Sir Henry Wellcome at the Jebel Moya excavations. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY. |
When Wellcome
died in 1936, his collection was cared for by trustees, who were eventually
based in London. Much of the collection was dispersed to various museums in
Britain, but by the early 1970s some of it remained in the basement of the
Petrie Museum. Gwyn Griffiths (1911–2004), lecturer in the Classics Department
of University College Swansea (now Swansea University), and David Dixon
(1930–2005), lecturer in Egyptology at University College London, arranged for
a selection of the artefacts to come to Swansea. The condition of the loan
being that the objects ‘should be made available to research workers all over
the world, and that part of it, at least, should be shown to the public’. In
1971, ninety-two crates of material arrived in South Wales. These were later
supplemented by forty-eight pottery vases. Kate Bosse-Griffiths (1910–1998),
wife of Gwyn Griffiths and an Egyptologist, carefully unpacked them and
rediscovered a wealth of objects, some of which were still wrapped in 1930s
newspapers (fig. 2).
These included objects from Armant, Tell el-Amarna, Deir el-Medina, Esna,
Mostagedda, Qau el-Kebir, etc. Additionally, some of the artefacts can be
traced back to the collections of Robert de Rustafjaell (1853–1943), Robert
Grenville Gayer-Anderson (1881–1945), Revd Randolph Humphrey Berens
(1844–1922), Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832–1904), Revd William Frankland Hood
(1825–1864), and the Revd William MacGregor (1848–1937), amongst others.
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| Fig. 2: Wedding photo of Kate and Gwyn Griffiths (1939) |
As a
determined and indomitable woman, Kate succeeded in setting up a small museum
which resided in the Chemistry Department for two years (fig. 3). However, under the patronage of
John Gould (1927–2001), Chair of Greek, a small room in the Classics Department
soon housed a number of unique and exciting pieces, several of which Kate and
others later published. Roger Davies, the Arts Faculty photographer, and his
wife assisted Kate in the setting up of the exhibition. David Dixon, as a
Welsh-speaking Welshman had requested that all labels were bilingual, a policy
that is still adhered to.
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Fig. 3: Dr. Kate
Bosse-Griffiths with the collection housed in the science lab (1972).
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The
collection, which became known as the Wellcome Museum, formally opened to the
public in June 1976 (fig.
4) for two afternoons in each week of term (Thursdays and Fridays
2.30–4.30). Some artefacts were also displayed at the Royal Institution of
South Wales (now Swansea Museum). Although a limited number of artefacts were displayed under protective conditions within the University, the majority were exposed. To enhance the preservation of these valuable items, the University acquired additional display cases using funds from its reserves during the academic year 1978–1979. In
1978 the collection was added to by items from the surplus of items from the
Egypt Exploration Society excavations, including many from Amarna, which were
distributed by the British Museum. Additionally, in 1982 the Twenty-first
Dynasty coffin of the Chantress of Amun, Iwesemhesetmut, was transferred from
the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter (fig. 5).
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Fig. 4:
Official opening of the Wellcome Museum in 1976. Left to right: Prof. Gwyn
Griffiths, Prof. Robert Steel (University Principal), Dr. Kate Bosse-Griffiths,
Mayoress and Mayor of Swansea, Harry James.
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In 1993 the
title ‘Honorary Curator’ was passed to David Gill, lecturer in the Department
of Classics and Ancient History. David had formerly been a research assistant
in Greek and Roman antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
(1988–1992). Kate continued as ‘Honorary Adviser’. The collection remained
under-used, possibly because of resource limitations in terms of staff, money,
and space, but also perhaps because of the then unfashionable nature of
object-centred learning in universities. In January 1995, Sybil Crouch, manager
of the Taliesin Arts Centre, produced a report to the University Image and
Marketing Sub Committee suggesting the setting up of a new museum for the
Egyptology exhibition. After the suggestion to improve access to the
collection, Heritage Lottery Funding and European Regional Development Funding
was sought. This, together with a sum from the University, allowed the building
of a purpose-built museum as a wing of the Taliesin Arts Centre. A working
party, chaired by Prof. Alan Lloyd, an Egyptologist and Head of the Department of
Classics and Ancient History, worked on ideas for display. During this time
members of the group had included: Sybil Crouch; David Gill; Anthony Donohue
(1944–2016), an Egyptologist who had studied the collection over a number of
years; Fiona Nixon, a Swansea University architect; and Gerald Gabb, from
Swansea Museum Service.
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Fig. 5: Dr.
Kate Bosse-Griffiths with the recently acquired coffin of Chantress of Amun,
Iwesenhesetmut (1982).
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During the
interim period, David Gill, together with Alison Lloyd of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, organised an exhibition in the Glynn Vivian called ‘The Face
of Egypt’ to show selected items from the Wellcome Museum, as well as items
loaned from other Welsh museums, as a foretaste of the new museum. This
exhibition proved to be a great success. In 1997, 130 objects were transferred
to Swansea from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where they had been part
of a general teaching collection. In the same year the first professional curator,
Carolyn Graves-Brown, was employed, and in September 1998 the Museum was officially
opened to the public by the Viscount St. Davids (1939–2009) (fig. 6). The following
year the Friends of the Egypt Centre was formed and continues to this day. The
museum originally had one curator, partly funded by the Council of Museums in
Wales. We now have five full-time members of staff, four part-time, and over
one hundred volunteers. Each year, around 20,000 visitors come to see the
collection of almost 6,000 artefacts, many of which are housed in the two
galleries: The House of Death and the House of Life. Since opening its doors,
the Egypt Centre has had several donations and loans of artefacts. In 2005,
forty-two objects were loaned by the British Museum, while in 2012 a collection
of fifty-eight artefacts arrived from Woking College.
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Fig. 6:
Official opening of the Egypt Centre in 1998. Left to right: Sybil Crouch,
Fiona Nixon, Dr. Carolyn Graves-Brown, Prof. Robin Williams (former Vice
Chancellor), Prof. David Gill, Prof. Alan Lloyd, Lord St. Davids, Mayor and
Mayoress of Swansea.
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In the
twenty-two years since the Egypt Centre was formed, several special exhibitions
have taken place. The first was Reflections of Women in Ancient Egypt: Women,
museums and Egyptologists, which was launched in 2001. In 2005, the Egypt
Centre was fortunate to have the temporary loan of the Rhind Mathematical
Papyrus from the British Museum, which accompanied the exhibition Pharaoh’s
Formula: Maths in ancient Egypt (fig. 7). The most recent was Through the Lens:
Images of Egypt 1917–2009, launched in 2010, which showcased photos taken by
L.Sgt Johnston of Carmarthen during the First World War.
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Fig. 7: Prof.
Richard Parkinson unveiling the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (2005)
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The Egypt
Centre has organised and hosted a number of international conferences over the
past two decades. For example, in December 2005 the museum organised Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt: ‘Don your
wig for a joyful hour’, the proceedings of which were published in 2008.
This was followed in 2006 by The
Exploited and Adored: Animals in ancient Egypt. In 2010 there was the
successful conference Egyptology in the
Present: Experiential and experimental methods in archaeology (fig. 8), which was
accompanied by a small display exhibit in the House of Life, with the
proceedings following in 2015. Demon
Things: Ancient Egyptian manifestations of liminal entities was
co-organised by the Egypt Centre and the Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project.
In 2018, the Egypt Centre hosted the annual CIPEG (Comité international pour l’égyptologie) conference, under the theme of Beating Barriers! Overcoming obstacles to achievement. Most
recently, in 2019 the Egypt Centre organised the conference Wonderful Things: The Material Culture of the Egypt Centre. Because of its success, we have decided to make this an
annual event. However, due to the current situation, the conference planned for
May this year will instead take place via a series of free Zoom lectures, the
initial programme of which can be found here.
In 2021, we will celebrate fifty years of the collection arriving in Swansea!
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Fig. 8:
Participants of the Egyptology in the Present conference (2010).
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Bibliography:
Gill, D. (2005) ‘From Wellcome
Museum to Egypt Centre: Displaying Egyptology in Swansea’. Göttinger
Miszellen: Beiträge zur ägyptologischen Diskussion 205: 47–54.
Graves-Brown, C. (2004) ‘The
birth of the Egypt Centre’. Discussions in Egyptology 59: 23–30.
Griffiths, J. G. (2000) ‘Museum efforts before Wellcome’. Inscriptions: The newsletter of the Friends of the
Egypt Centre, Swansea 5: 6.
Griffin, K. (2019) ‘Egypt in
Swansea’. Ancient Egypt 20, 2: 42–48.
Larson, F. (2009) An infinity
of things: How Sir Henry Wellcome collected the world. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rhodes James, R. (1994) Henry
Wellcome. Hodder & Stoughton, 1994.
