A Wellcome Reunion?

The blog post for this week has been written by Egypt Centre volunteer and University of Birmingham PhD student, Sam Powell, who is a regular contributor to this blog.

As regular attendees to Ken’s courses will know, I am currently visiting various institutions across the UK to gather data on the wooden funerary figures from tomb models as part of my PhD research. My aim is to build a stylistic typology of these figures as a means of establishing a likely provenance for unprovenanced examples. As this research builds upon my MA dissertation focusing on the figures held in the Egypt Centre, this week’s topic of “Funerary Figures” seemed a great time to provide an update on some of my findings relating to a group of these figures held in the Egypt Centre.

For those taking Ken’s course, you may remember one of the figures included in week two (W445), a lovely squatting figure from a kitchen scene roasting a goose over a fire. This figure was assembled by the amazing team at Cardiff University’s conservation department in 2020 thanks to a grant from the AIM Pilgrim Trust. This figure is one of five similar figures held by the Egypt Centre, coming from the dispersal of the collection of Sir Henry Wellcome (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The five squatting figures of the Egypt Centre

As many of you know, the Egypt Centre was not the only institution to receive Wellcome material, and as I have found travelling to the World Museum in Liverpool, the material was not dispersed in the most logical groupings! My research visit to the stores at the World Museum took place over several days, and Ashley Cooke, Curator of Ancient Egypt, very generously gave me a tour of some of the amazing objects they have. In amongst the seventy-plus figures I examined, two in particular looked very familiar to me; 1973.1.571 and 1973.1.572 (fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Figures 1973.1.571 and 1973.1.572, World Museum, Liverpool

 

The type of wood struck me immediately as being similar to the squatting kitchen crew residing in the Egypt Centre. Stylistically, they were certainly comparable, but in different positions; 1973.1.571 is shown with slightly bent knees, whilst 1973.1.572 is kneeling rather than squatting. Both of these figures also come from the Wellcome collection, but unfortunately no further provenance is known.

Ashley was also kind enough to let me look at the loose arms and additional “bits” of wood that seem to inhabit every museum store to see if anything looked a potential match for the figures I was researching. I managed to reunite around a dozen arms to their rightful figures (one of my favourite parts of this research). Two of these reunited arms were matches for the Wellcome figures, most crucially for 1973.1.572, the hand of the reunited arm is holding a ball of dough, allowing an identification of this figure as a baker (fig. 3). This was particularly exciting as I had assumed that all the figures in the Egypt Centre were roasting fowl in the same manner as W445, but it now seems more likely that they are part of a larger collection depicting various scenes of food production. Several other arms that match this group of figures are held in the stores in both Liverpool and Swansea, but it is difficult to match them without physically reuniting the material.

Fig. 3: Figures 1973.1.571 and 1973.1.572, World Museum, Liverpool with their reunited arms

Whilst looking for another figure, I also spotted another piece of wood that instantly caught my eye… (fig. 4).

Fig. 4: The fragment of wood, 1973.2.9, World Museum, Liverpool

After working with the Egypt Centre figures for so long, this unassuming piece of wood was clearly (well clearly for someone obsessed with these figures!) the knees of squatting figure W453 in the Egypt Centre. I brought up the figure in my database to check sizes, and sure enough, these knees seem to be a match (fig. 5)!

Fig. 5: Figure W453, The Egypt Centre, virtually reunited with its knees, 1973.2.9, World Museum, Liverpool

The final elements for these figures were some planks of wood, which appear to be the bases for tomb models, also coming from the Wellcome dispersal. Sure enough, the sizes match these figures and the wear patterns seem consistent, although again, without physically reuniting these objects it is difficult to establish which base would belong with each figure (figs. 6 & 7).

Fig. 6: Figure 1973.1.572, and base 1973.1.602, World Museum, Liverpool

The figures were purchased by Wellcome as part of the Sotheby & Co auction of the collection of Frankland Hood on 12–13 November 1928, lot 218, which describes “ten well-modelled Figures of artisans including two soldiers, 12^th Dynasty, in good condition”. The five Egypt Centre figures, plus the two ‘soldiers’ (actually offering bearers W447 and W448) bring the total to seven. The two additional figures of the World Museum bring the total to nine leaving one unaccounted for figure. They are noted as coming from the MacGregor sale in 1922, but it is unclear as to the number of figures at that time, or whether they all came from the same provenance. As my research visits continue around the country, with many more recipients of Wellcome material to visit, my hope is that the final figure and further elements of these models may emerge and shed further light on this fascinating assemblage of funerary figures.

Fig. 7: Likely bases for the Egypt Centre squatting figures, 1973.1.574, and 1973.1.575, World Museum, Liverpool

It would be fantastic to be able to physically reunite these figures, but even to virtually bring these objects back together is very satisfying. Perhaps with the advances in 3D printing, it may be possible to replicate the individual components to create the complete scene.

I would like to finish this post by expressing my thanks to Ken Griffin at the Egypt Centre, Ashley Cooke at the World Museum, and all the other institutions that have been kind enough to facilitate my research visits; here’s hoping for plenty more discoveries!