Just over a week ago, I started running a new Egypt Centre short course, the seventh to have taken place during the COVID-19 Pandemic. These courses have been extremely popular, with a total of 978 participants to date. Income from the courses has also helped to offset the losses from our regular sources of income; shop sales, educational visits, and other events. We are grateful to everyone who has supported us over the past fourteen months!
The topic for this course is
the Amarna Period, with a focus on the 300+ objects from Amarna in the Egypt
Centre collection. As the COVID situation in the UK is gradually improving and
places start to open up, the topic of the course is somewhat fitting. When the
UK lockdown was implemented by in March 2020, I was in the middle of teaching
an in-person course on the same topic, which had to be cancelled after six
weeks (fig. 1).
Therefore, it is great to return to the topic as it allows me to highlight the
Egypt Centre collection to a much wider audience. Unfortunately, unlike during
the in-person sessions, students will not be able to handle the objects,
instead relying on photographs. This blog post will present a brief
introduction to the Amarna collection at Swansea, which has always been one of
our most popular displays.
Fig. 1: Examining a copy of the bust of Nefertiti pre-COVID |
With the Egypt Centre
closed, this time has been the ideal opportunity to refurbish our current
displays. In August, we were informed that a
collaborative project with our colleague Dr Ersin Hussein was successful in
obtaining funding from the Institute
on Classical Studies to create a new display called Egypt and Its Neighbours. Objects in
the Amarna case were relocated to a larger one, which previously displayed
objects relating to technology in order to free up space for the Egypt and its Neighbours display. Over
the past few weeks, I have been preparing the Amarna objects for their new
location, carrying out photography, and completing condition reports. I am
pleased to say that all the objects from the old display have now been
transferred to the new case, although work will continue with revamping it
before we open to the public again. (fig. 2). Additionally, new photography of all the
objects in the case can now be found on our online collection catalogue. The catalogue
entries for these objects will also be updated over the coming weeks. Some of
these objects will be featured in subsequent blog posts by class participants
over the next four weeks.
Fig. 2: Preview on the new Amarna case (still a work in progress!) |
We are
particularly excited that the bigger case has provided the opportunity to
display a large storage vessel (W193) from Amarna, which has recently been
conserved at Cardiff University. This was part of a Pilgrim Trust and AIM funded
project, which we received in late 2019. Shortly before the lockdown
started, Dr Ashley Lingle came to the Egypt Centre to disassemble the pot for
transport to Cardiff. The vessel had been joined with cellulose nitrate and was
showing signs of failing. Once in Cardiff, it was desalinated to remove the
salts over a period of eight weeks, with water changes every two weeks. The
vessel was removed from the water and airdried for four months due to the COVID
pandemic. The vessel was then reconstructed with 50% Paraloid B-72 w/v in
acetone. Small sherds and delaminated surface decoration from a bag kept inside
the object were sorted and re-adhered with 20% Paraloid B-72 w/v in acetone as
possible. Friable areas were consolidated with 5% Paraloid B-72 w/v in acetone.
The vessel was packaged in a large storage container prior to its return to
Swansea in October 2020 (fig. 3).
Fig. 3: W193 before and after conservation |
Almost all of
the objects from Amarna come from the excavations of the Egypt Exploration
Society (EES) during the 1920–30s, with a few notable exceptions. As reported
in an earlier blog post, some small objects
can be traced back to the excavations of Flinders Petrie, who was assisted by a
young Howard Carter during his excavations of the site in 1891–92 (fig. 4). Those that were
excavated by the EES fall into three categories:
Fig. 4: Model throwstick (W962) |
(1) Objects
given to Sir Henry Wellcome, a financial sponsor of the excavations, as part of
the distribution of finds. Records in the Wellcome Collection and the EES reveal
that Wellcome received a little under 300 objects. These were subsequently
redistributed to various museums (including Swansea) in the UK between
1969–1971. This included a substantial amount of pottery, such as the
aforementioned vessel, and painted plaster from the North Riverside Palace
(fig. 5).
Fig. 5: Fragment of painted plaster from the North Riverside Palace |
(2) Objects from
Amarna donated to Swansea by the British Museum in 1978, which were part of the
“disposable remains” of objects transferred from the EES two years previously.
The exact amount of objects is uncertain, so the list at the time is rather
vague. E.g., “box of faience ring bezels”. Work is currently ongoing to trace
some of these objects amongst the extremely valuable Amarna records cards, which are held
at the EES offices and are also available online. The past week has seen some
success, with one noteworthy example. While photographing objects, I noticed a
tiny pendant bead with hieroglyphs on both sides, which was mixed in with
eighteen other objects under the number EC1978. The excavation
number on the side (26–7.280), which was only visible after photography,
reveals that the object was excavated during the 1926–27 season in a large
house (V37.1) in the North Suburb (Pendlebury & Frankfort 1933, 5–80). The
EES object card for this item can be found here. Noteworthy is
the fact that the inscription contains the name of Amun, which is written on
both sides. One side possibly mentions a “Lector Priest of Amun”, while the
other is potentially a personal name (fig. 6). Any thoughts on the readings here would be
greatly appreciated!
Fig. 6: Fragment of a glass pendant |
(3) The final
group of objects from Amarna are those that were donated to the Egypt Centre
collection by private individuals. The first of these was in 1973 by Cyril
Aldred, the eminent Egyptologist and Amarna specialist, who sent a small number
of faience pendants/amulets. These were part of Aldred’s “faience box”, with
some being sent to Kate Bosse-Griffiths as comparison pieces for our Amarna
collars (W8–W11). While the exact provenance of these items is unknown, it is
possible they also originated from the EES excavations. The reason being that
three subsequent donors of objects from Amarna purchased them from the EES
offices in the 1960s, with many of the items still carrying their excavation
numbers. The most recent of these occurred just a few months ago, when a
limestone fragment containing a finely carved wig was transferred to the
collection (fig. 7).
The number 26 on the back was enough to identify it as TA.34–35.26, which was
excavated by the EES during the 1934–35 season. The object card notes that this
item was found in the buildings south-west of the Great Palace (O.42.2).
Fig. 7: Limestone relief fragment |
Although the
Amarna collection in Swansea has been the subject of much research over the
past fifty years (Bosse-Griffiths 2001; Graves-Brown 2014), there
is still so much for us to learn!
Bibliography:
Bosse-Griffiths, Kate 2001. Amarna studies and other selected papers. Edited by J. Gwyn
Griffiths. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 182. Freiburg (Schweiz); Göttingen:
Universitätsverlag; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Graves-Brown, Carolyn 2014. A gazelle, a lute player and
Bes: three ring bezels from Amarna. In Dodson, A. M., John J. Johnston, and W. Monkhouse
(eds), A good scribe and an exceedingly
wise man: studies in honour of W. J. Tait, 113–126. London: Golden House.
Frankfort, H. and J. D. S.
Pendlebury 1933. The city of Akhenaten. Part II: The north suburb and the
desert altars. The excavations at Tell el Amarna during the seasons 1926–1932. Memoir of the Egypt
Exploration Society 40. London: Egypt Exploration Society.
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