Alexander the Great at Karnak

The blog post for this week is written by Linda Kimmel, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. When she retired from full-time work as a data research manager in late 2020, she began studying the ancient world and serving as a docent at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Linda had never heard of the Egypt Centre before the pandemic but has taken every course offered since she first noticed a tweet about the museum in the fall of 2020 and has been taking online courses there ever since. She hopes to visit the Egypt Centre in 2024, provided the trains are running!

 

The latest Egypt Centre course with Ken Griffin—Karnak: The Most Select of Places—finished with a final session on Graeco-Roman Karnak. This was the session I most looked forward to when Ken first gave us the outline for the course. In addition to being fascinated with ancient Egypt, I am also interested in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and in particular the Hellenistic period.

 

Most of the expansion at Karnak occurred during the New Kingdom. However, while few monuments were built during the Graeco-Roman Period, many older monuments were restored and redecorated. In our last session, Ken covered a host of Macedonian, Ptolemaic, and Roman rulers and the changes made at Karnak during their reigns. While far more work was done at Karnak under various Ptolemaic rulers, notably Ptolemy III, I decided to focus on the work done under the rule of Alexander III of Macedon, more frequently known as Alexander the Great (fig. 1). Nearly one year ago I took a course on Alexander the Great. I was fascinated not so much by his military conquests, but by how he interacted with the lands he invaded.

Fig. 1: Alexander the Great at Karnak

When I think of Alexander the Great and Egypt, two sites come to mind: Alexandria and Siwa. Alexandria is easy. It is one of the many cities called Alexandria founded by Alexander throughout his empire. Siwa, comes to mind as it is there that Alexander visited the oracle and after said he was the son of Zeus Amun (Bosch-Puche, 2014; Carney 2006) and not Philip (fig. 2). But Karnak? Until this last class I had never linked Alexander to Karnak.

Fig. 2: Siwa oracle temple

Alexander entered Egypt in late 332 BCE, but while he ruled Egypt for approximately ten years, he was only in the country for a brief period, with no evidence he went as far south as Karnak. How then did he become associated with Karnak? Ken said it is most likely that the work at Karnak during Alexander’s reign was done by order of the priests, using Alexander’s name as a sponsor. Given Alexander’s associations with Zeus Amun, it is appropriate that he would appear in some form at Karnak, with its main complex devoted to the god Amun-Ra. 

 

As with most of the Graeco-Roman Period, the work done in Alexander’s name focused on the renewal and redecoration of existing monuments. His different pharaonic names are attested in numerous locations at Karnak (Bosch-Puche, 2013). Under Alexander, the gateway of the Fourth Pylon was renewed, with his cartouche added (fig. 3). Alexander’s name was also added to the entrance gateway to the Khonsu Temple. But for me, the most interesting work is that done to the Akhmenu, over 1,000 years after its original construction.

Fig. 3: Cartouches of Alexander the Great on the Fourth Pylon (CNRS-CFEETK 202558)

The Akhmenu, or “Festival Hall,” was first constructed during the reign of Thutmosis III. It is both an imposing and puzzling structure, as there is no clear consensus amongst Egyptologists as to what its original function and use was during the reign of Thutmosis III (Blyth, 2006). The work in the Akhmenu is the most well-known of the work at Karnak done under Alexander, with a room at the back of the building now termed the “Sanctuary of Alexander” (fig. 4). Originally built under the reign of Thutmosis III, the Macedonian inscription indicates the renovation was done under the name of Alexander the Great. Why is this important? Ken noted that many would say Thutmosis III was Egypt’s greatest military ruler, so was it a deliberate choice, most likely of the priests, to link Alexander, the great Macedonian military ruler, with Thutmosis III?

Fig. 4: Plan of the Akhmenu

Alexander is typically depicted in classical Greek style with a handsome, youthful, idealized face and long hair (fig. 5). It is suggested that Alexander understood the propaganda power of portraiture and allowed only one sculptor to carve his portrait (Getty). In contrast to this classical portrait, among the work done to the Akhmenu is a relief showing Alexander between the gods Sokar and Amun, with him making offerings to these gods (fig. 6). In this relief, Alexander is clearly depicted as an Egyptian, rather than as a Macedonian. In addition to making offerings to an Egyptian god, he is wearing a kilt and a broad collar, carrying an ankh, and on his normally clean-shaven face is a false beard. Moreover, Bosch-Puche (2014) notes numerous linkages to the god Amun in Alexander’s royal titulary. Clearly, he is being portrayed as an Egyptian. But to what purpose?

Fig. 5: Classical head of Alexander from the Getty Museum

 

Bosch-Puche (2014) suggests that Alexander’s royal names were selected deliberately by the priests, both to establish Alexander as the legitimate ruler of Egypt and to indicate that the Macedonians were accommodating themselves to Egyptian traditions. Given Alexander’s brief stay in Egypt, it is unclear if he was even aware of the images carved of him and the inscriptions attributed to him that were placed at Karnak. Nevertheless, I find the Egyptianized portraits of Alexander, along with the linkages in his royal titulary to Amun, consistent with the stories we hear of Alexander’s practices in Persia.

Fig. 6: Alexander the Great between Amun and Sokar

Numerous ancient writers recount episodes in which Alexander took steps to adapt to local practices, seemingly to unite the residents of his newly conquered lands with the Macedonians. At Susa, he held a mass wedding in which he, and many of his officers, married the daughters of the local aristocracy. Arrian reports that the wedding was held in “Persian style.” (Romm, 2012). We are also told that in addition to wearing Persian clothes, Alexander began to require that visitors prostrate themselves upon entering his tent, the Persian practice of proskynesis. While these practices may have had practical purposes, they seem to have caused dissension in his troops. I am left wondering what his troops—and fellow officers—would have thought about the images of Alexander at Karnak. Clearly, the succeeding Ptolemaic rulers endorsed these practices, as they too depicted themselves as Egyptians. Perhaps it was a practice that worked better over time.

 

The next Egypt Centre course—Causing Their Names to Live: The Lives of the Ancient Egyptians—begins on January 21. That gives me a month to review some of the many articles Ken has sent us about Karnak, to delve more into Alexander and the Ptolemies in Egypt, as well as to do some initial readings on who some of the famous or infamous characters we will encounter in our next class might be.

 

References

Blyth, Elizabeth 2006. Karnak: evolution of a temple. London: Routledge.

Bosch-Puche, Francisco 2013. The Egyptian royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, Two Ladies, Golden Horus, and Throne names. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 99, 131–154.

Bosch-Puche, Francisco 2014. The Egyptian royal titulary of Alexander the Great, II: Personal name, empty cartouches, final remarks, and appendix. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 100, 89–109.

Carney, Elizabeth 2006. Olympias: mother of Alexander the Great. New York: Routledge.

Getty 2023. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103SXY [accessed December 20, 2023]

Romm, James 2012. The landmark Arrian: the campaigns of Alexander. New York: Anchor Books.

The Seven Hathors of Karnak

This blog post has been written by Sandra Ottens, who has been working as a secretary at the municipality of Amsterdam for thirty years. Sandra studied Egyptology at Leiden University (BA and MA) from 2006 to 2012. She started blogging about her Egyptological adventures when her class attended a two-month study semester in Cairo, visiting a large number of excavation sites (https://egyptoblogie.wordpress.com). Sandra joined the excavations in Amheida (Dakhla Oasis) as an assistant epigrapher to Professor Olaf Kaper for one season in 2012. She wrote her MA thesis on the Seven Hathors, a group of seven goddesses who predicted the fate of newborn children. This blog post is about the Seven Hathors at Karnak, which is written here to coincide with the Egypt Centre’s short course on Karnak currently taking place.

 

Let me present to you what remains of the Seven Hathors in Karnak. This group is not depicted in the main temple of Karnak, but in the very small chapel J in the northeast corner of the complex. The chapel is usually referred to as the chapel of Osiris wp išd (fig. 1), because of a text that was discovered inside it. Redford (1986) has identified this chapel as the “temple of Isis of the Great Mound”, which was built by Hory, who was a priest of Amun around the time of Osorkon II (Twenty-second Dynasty) and Takelot II and Pedubast I (early Twenty-third Dynasty). Of this chapel only a few rows of blocks remain, and only a few pieces of relief, which are not in the best condition. But the very interesting thing is that one of these reliefs depicts the seven Hathors.

Fig. 1: The Osiris chapel

The Hathors were said to appear at the birth of a child in order to foretell its fate. In fairy tales, this fate could be either good or bad. In a temple context, the Hathors come to foretell the fate of a god or a king. In such cases, their predictions are always positive, because that fits into the ideology of the temple. They are accompanied by music, singing, and dancing.

The first Hathor is shown playing two sistra, and the ladies behind her, as far as they are still visible, are playing tambourines (fig. 2). There are a few captions left, which identify them as Hathors from different sanctuaries. The second lady is called Hathor, lady of Heracleopolis Magna, the fourth is called Hathor, lady of the Southern Sycomore, the fifth is called Hathor, lady of the Red Lake, and the sixth is called Hathor, lady of Es-Siririya. The names of the other ladies are lost.

Fig. 2: Detail of the first three Hathors

Before the Hathors stands a priest wearing a leopard skin and carrying a Horus falcon on a standard (fig. 3). Opposite this group is a baboon, of which only the lower half is visible, and behind the baboon, there is a male figure that is too damaged to be identified. This is where the piece of incised stone ends, but there seems to be enough space on the wall for there to have been another figure behind him. It is likely that the Hathors are playing their music for a god. Since the relief is in Karnak and the Hathors are usually associated with childbirth, a likely candidate would be Khonsu, the child of the Theban gods Amun and his wife Mut. Khonsu can sometimes be depicted as a baboon.

Fig. 3: Detail of the priest(s) before the first Hathor

According to Redford, this is the “temple of Isis of the Great Mound”, which was associated with the burial place of Osiris. In a text describing that building, it is called the msḫn.t (birthplace?) of Atum and the island of Re at the beginning, where Amun passes by (in procession) in his feast of the first of šmw, which appears to have had solar and Osirian connections. That may suggest a variety of other child gods. 

This little chapel, consisting of only two rooms, was excavated and restored in 1950. The 1951 publications by Chevrier and Leclant show photos of a reasonably well-preserved relief. Philippe Gossaert went to Karnak in 2012 and published some new photos on the web forum Per Kemet (which no longer exists). These show that one of the top blocks, showing the upper halves of the second, third, and fourth Hathor, is now missing. I went to Karnak in 2015 and the block was still missing (fig. 4). I took a walk around the chapel and had a good look at the blocks in the vicinity, but I couldn’t find anything like the block in the photos. Is it still somewhere in the Karnak precinct? If so, who moved it, and why?

Fig. 4: Annotated photo of the wall with the missing block in blue

Furthermore, at first glance, it seemed that the block to the right of it, with the remaining tops of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Hathor was now also missing. Then, to my relief, I noticed that this block was lying on the floor in front of the wall, upside down, and propped up on a couple of pieces of concrete (fig. 5). So it’s not exactly where it’s supposed to be, but at least it still exists. And who knows, at some point someone may take the trouble of restoring it to its place on the wall …

Fig. 5: The loose block with final Hathors

Bibliography:

Chevrier, Henri 1951. Rapport sur les travaux de Karnak 1950–1951. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 51, 549–572. [p. 554, pl. II.1]

Guglielmi, W. 1991. Die Göttin Mr.t: Entstehung und Verehrung einer Personifikation. Probleme der Ägyptologie 7. Leiden: Brill. [p. 95, n. 218]

Leclant, Jean 1951. Fouilles et travaux en Égypte, 1950–1951. I. Orientalia 20 (4), 453–475. [p. 463, pl. 53 (15)].

Porter, Bertha and Rosalind L. B. Moss 1972. Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs and paintings II: Theban temples, 2nd, augmented and revised ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Griffith Institute. [p. 204 (7). The depiction of the seven Hathors is not on wall 7 but on wall 6 of the plan in Porter & Moss]

Redford, Donald B. 1986. New light on Temple J at Karnak. Orientalia 55 (1), 1–15.

Rochholz, Matthias 2002. Schöpfung, Feindvernichtung, Regeneration: Untersuchung zum Symbolgehalt der machtgeladenen Zahl 7 im alten Ägypten. Ägypten und Altes Testament 56. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. [p. 72 (doc. 39)]

The Swansea University Pottery Project: Part 1

This is the first of a two-part blog series on the Swansea University Pottery Project (SUPP) that describes its background, aims, methods, and future direction of the project. The second part will highlight some of the project’s research results to date. This post has been written by Christian Knoblauch, with input from Ken Griffin and Meg Gundlach.

 

Background
One strength of the Egypt Centre is its collection of ancient pottery, with over 1000 accessioned objects representing approximately 1/5 of the entire collection. The material spans the full extent of Egyptian history from prehistory to modern times, as well as important collections of Greek, Roman, and Sudanese material. Most of it has neither been studied nor adequately recorded. Due to limitations on space in the museum, only a small percentage is on display, meaning the public and researchers have never seen much of it (fig. 1). This is in fact a typical situation at many of the UK museums with extensive collections of Egyptian pottery. This material is often less well-studied than other types of artefacts, both due to the sheer quantity of the material and because the training and interests of many Egyptologists (or curators responsible for local collections) lie elsewhere. Most of this material entered private and public collections during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when British organisations such as the Egypt Exploration Fund/Society, the Egypt Research Account, and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt funded their excavations using subscriptions, for which the funders received objects from the excavation. As such, the objects are not only important in their own right but can often be linked to archaeological excavations and ancient contexts and are therefore indispensable data for studying the ancient past.

Fig. 1: The Pottery Case

Project aims

The aims of SUPP are to provide a complete, up-to-date record of each piece of pottery in the online collection catalogue so that this important material is fully accessible to all for free. At the same time, we want to promote student involvement in research, engage students in roles that enhance employability, and improve our learning community (fig. 2). The project is a collaboration between staff and students from the department of Heritage, History and Classics, the Egypt Centre, and the research group for Object and Landscape Approaches to the Past (OLCAP). The project is directed by Dr. Christian Knoblauch (specialist in Egyptian pottery and Lecturer in Egyptian Material Culture, Swansea University), Dr. Meg Gundlach (Collections Access Manager, The Egypt Centre), and Dr. Ken Griffin (Curator, The Egypt Centre).

Fig. 2: Members of the 2023 SUPP project

While staff direct the project, the actual task of getting these objects online is largely the work of a twelve student team selected through a competitive application process and who donate two hours each week to the project during semester time. Students receive full training in handling, recording, and describing museum objects. The students use these skills to record the objects, moving towards independent work as the semester progresses (fig. 3). Students who wish to remain with the project in the following semester can apply to do so and contribute towards training new volunteers; essentially, this is learning by doing and learning by teaching others. In total, we have provided over 100 hours of free (over 1000 accumulative student hours), extra-curricular professional-level skills training, which is roughly equivalent to an entire semester’s contact hours for a 1^st/2^nd Year Undergraduate student.

Fig. 3: Checking the fabric

Anyone familiar with online catalogues knows these are usually put together over a longer period by different people, resulting in inconsistency in language, descriptors, order, and numeric data. The aim of SUPP is to provide an accurate, internally consistent, and systematic record of the entire collection of pottery in the Egypt Centre. In each session, students work in pairs to record the objects, pooling knowledge and checking each other’s work as they go to ensure accuracy. SUPP employs strict guidelines for what measurements are recorded and how to take them, as well as standardised criteria for describing the shape, technology, surface treatment, decoration, and colour of the vessels (fig. 4). The use of drop-down menus for searchable fields such as object type, culture, date, material, provenance, and fabric further ensures consistency across the catalogue. The terminology and criteria used for SUPP are all based on systems employed by specialists in the field meaning the data can be seamlessly incorporated into our users’ own research. Of course, we pay great attention to any labels left on the pots by excavators, previous owners, and auction houses—one of the highlights of any session is reconnecting a pot with its original archaeological context. This information is also added to the pot’s record, meaning scholars can easily get an overview of what sites (and even what tombs) are represented in the collection (this will be discussed in more detail in Part 2 of this blog).

Fig. 4: Guidelines for SUPP

The student interns enter data and descriptions directly into the online collection catalogue (Abaset) and these are edited by a member of staff before saving (fig. 5). Once the students click “save”, their records become publicly available online. This is an exciting moment as there is no time lag between recording of the data and its availability for researchers worldwide and students rightly feel that they are contributing to global research. In an ideal world, each entry would be perfect before going online. However, perfection is the enemy of completion, so if the basic information (measurements/fabrics/date) is correct, we prefer to publish first and make amendments when we have time or the need arises. Abaset has a built-in function whereby researchers or the public working with the online catalogue can submit extra information or corrections for consideration by the editorial team. We hope our colleagues from across the world engage with this function (particularly with dates!) and build on the fantastic platform that the students of SUPP have laid down.

Fig. 5: SUPP students entering data in the online catalogue

The project has also benefited hugely from the completion of a totally new photographic record for each pot to accompany the entry in Abaset. The photography by Ken Griffin is done using strict guidelines, including neutral backgrounds and visible and consistent scales (fig. 6). Each vessel has images from different perspectives with close-up images of important features. Some of the more complex vessels also have 3D scans, although this can often be challenging to capture the interior of the vessels.

Fig. 6: Photography of HARGM3895

The student volunteers are the main asset of SUPP. They come from different degree schemes and range from second-year undergraduates in Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology, to Public History and Heritage MAs and PhD students. The students have formed a unique, supportive, and positive learning community, making a huge contribution to knowledge about our collection and providing access to it for the public and researchers (while having a good time and a good chat). Most of them have no prior knowledge of pottery, Egyptian pottery (or even Egyptology in some cases), but it is inspiring to see how motivated and invested in the project they become. Participation in the project also has a direct impact on our student’s approach to their studies: one of our students, Katie Morton, recently completed an excellent BA Honours thesis on the wonderful Blue Painted Pottery from Amarna in the collection (fig. 7) whereas current SUPPian Jess Evans is writing her undergraduate thesis on pottery “imitations” of vessels in more expensive materials during the New Kingdom, inspired by some vessels she studied for SUPP.

Fig. 7: All hands on deck!

SUPP now and in the future

We have been running the project for two academic years and recently completed Phase I, which involved making the records of all complete vessels in the Egypt Centre (c. 400 vessels) as well as the Harrogate loan (80 vessels) available online. We are now entering Phase II, a detailed recording of the extensive collection of sherd material from the Egypt Exploration Society’s Armant 1936–37 excavations, including Badarian, A-Group, and Pan-Grave pottery. This requires training in new skills as we have so far only been working with complete vessels. Phase III of SUPP (2024–2026) is to complete technical drawings of each vessel and make these available online along with the photography (fig. 8). Once completed, Swansea’s collection will be the most comprehensively recorded and published Egyptian pottery collection in the UK.

Fig. 8: Learning new skills

Taking a broader perspective, it is hard to exaggerate the huge quantities and importance of Egyptian pottery in UK regional museums. A direct result of the modern history of the UK and the history of archaeology in Egypt, it is our responsibility not only to look after this incredibly important material but to make it accessible so it can be made use of. Once the Egypt Centre material has been finished, SUPP would welcome the opportunity to work with external partners to make other collections freely available, perhaps as SUPP Phase IV (fig. 9)?

Fig. 9: SUPP poster

Reactions from the current SUPP students

Jess Evans, 3rd Year Swansea University Student:
“Being part of the SUPP team is so much fun and I have learned a lot from encountering so many different types of pottery. One of the vessels we catalogued even inspired my dissertation!”

Rebecca Toghill, 3rd Year Swansea University Student:

“I have loved having the chance to experience history through material culture as this was the first time I have had the opportunity to do so. I think what has worked so well for me with this project is seeing the real-time impact our research and cataloguing have had for the Egypt Centre’s database as we are continuously adding to this vessel’s history. It has been fantastic learning new terminologies, skills, and being able to now have another perspective on what comprises history and how we can consume that for understanding.”

Molly Stanley, 3^rd Year Swansea University Student:

“It’s my third year doing the project now but one of my favourite things about the sessions is that I’m always learning new things. There are so many different types of objects and it’s so fun and informative to not just learn about their origins and how they might have been used but to also get the opportunity to handle them and contribute to research on the object that may have never been done before.”

The Launch of the Harrogate Egyptian Collection Online

On Saturday 7th October, the Egypt Centre hosted a full day of celebrations to mark its 25th-anniversary. There were many special announcements, including the launch of the first exhibition of the Harrogate material, the display of the Djedhor the Saviour statue in the House of Death gallery, and the launch of the Harrogate Egyptian Collection online (fig. 1). The entire day was a fantastic experience and a good reminder of the amazing work of both staff and volunteers over the last quarter of a century. There were poignant moments remembering those no longer with us, and lots of laughter, particularly at the photos dragged up of our younger selves!

Fig. 1: Harrogate collection launch

I was tasked with presenting some of the successes of the Egypt Centre Online Collection, which I started work on back in 2019, and was launched three years ago in 2020 (fig. 2). Although putting together and presenting the slides provided me with an opportunity to take stock of the fantastic achievements of this collaboration, it was during the other presentations of the day by Egypt Centre staff, Swansea University lecturers, students, volunteers, conservators, and course attendees that it really hit home quite how big an impact the Online Collection has made. Seeing images of such a wide range of users interacting with the software made me quite emotional, and very, very proud!

Fig. 2: History of Abaset Collections

Following on from this success, The Harrogate Egyptian Online Collection has been designed to include all the same great features that have proven popular in the Egypt Centre Online Collection such as trails, hierarchical fields, and multiple images, audio, video, and 3D model capability (fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Impact of Abaset Collections

The story of the Harrogate loan to the Egypt Centre has already been written about in previous blog posts, but a great deal of work has been carried out since the collection’s arrival in March 2023. All 813 objects have been photographed and included within the Online Collection thanks to the tireless work of the Egypt Centre staff and volunteers (fig. 4). Many entries still require elaboration as research on the objects continues. The first trial, focusing on the objects in the first temporary exhibition is available and has already been translated into Welsh, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

Fig. 4: Stelae from the Harrogate collection

The launch of the Harrogate Egyptian Online Collection has also been very successful with 425 unique users in the first twenty-four hours of its launch and 988 in the first week from all over the world (fig. 5).

Fig. 5: Percentage of unique users by country in the first week since launch

I am very pleased that the most popular object has been the wooden funerary figure (HARGM7673) as she was the reason I first visited the Harrogate collection, and suggested the Egypt Centre as the ideal location for research of the Egyptian objects to be undertaken. She was closely followed by the Funerary Stela of Hetepnesmin (HARGM3584), which is likely popular due to its position as the first object in the online catalogue! The ostracon requesting goose fat (HARGM10823) mentioned in Ken’s keynote at the celebration event, and of course, the famous Anubis mask (HARGM10686) claim third and fourth places in popularity respectively (fig. 6).

Fig. 6: Most popular object during the first week

We welcome any feedback, positive or negative, in order to help us improve things further. To do so, please email Ken Griffin at k.griffin@swansea.ac.uk or Sam Powell (Abaset creator) at abasetcollections@outlook.com; we hope you enjoy exploring our collection virtually!

Twenty-five years of the Egypt Centre: A Wonderful Celebration

This past weekend has been quite a monumental occasion at the Egypt Centre as we marked twenty-five years since the museum opened to the public. We were joined by 158 people in-person and via Zoom who were treated to an excellent day (fig. 1). This included a series of presentations relating to volunteering, education, collaboration, object-based learning, and many other themes. The recordings of these are now available here. In the leadup to the event, we received dozens of video messages from past and present volunteers and staff, which really highlight the impact that the Egypt Centre has had—and continues to have—on them. These messages can be viewed here. Thank you to everyone who sent these!

Fig. 1: Group photo of some of the in-person attendees

During this event, we launched the first temporary exhibition of the Harrogate loan, which is called Causing their Names to Live. This title takes inspiration from a common vivification formula found on statues, stelae, and other objects. For the ancient Egyptians, one of the most important things was that their name would be remembered. The thirty objects chosen for this exhibit include stelae, statues, shabtis, funerary cones, a canopic jar, and scarabs (fig. 2). The centrepiece of the exhibition is a seated statue (HARGM10634) of a lady called Senetre, the upper half of which is now missing. Fortunately, the inscriptions on the sides and back of the chair do survive, revealing that the statue was dedicated by her father Nebamun “in order to cause her name to live”. Did Senetre die young and without children, the ones who would normally be expected to undertake the vivification duties? The statue is probably the only surviving object dedicated to this lady, which makes it particularly poignant. A free pdf relating to this exhibition can be downloaded here.

Fig. 2: New Harrogate exhibition

Related to this, the Egypt Centre, in collaboration with Harrogate Museums (North Yorkshire Council) and Abaset Collection Ltd, are pleased to announce the launch of the new Harrogate online collection catalogue. This catalogue contains 813 objects currently on loan to the Egypt Centre, where they will remain for three years. The catalogue is still a work in progress, photos of all objects are already available (fig. 3). Catalogue entries remain to be written, expanded upon, and cleaned, so please bear with us while this is being undertaken. While the vast majority of the objects are Egyptian, including some originating from the excavations of Petrie and Garstang, others are from Cyprus, Mesopotamia, and other regions. The Harrogate collection can also be viewed when using the Egypt Centre’s own online catalogue. We are grateful to all those who have participated in this collaborative project, the aim of which is to make the Harrogate collection more widely accessible. We hope that you enjoy exploring the collection and we welcome feedback and research requests from colleagues!

Fig. 3: Harrogate Online Collection homepage

It was also exciting to finally put the plaster cast of Djedhor the Saviour on display following the reunification of the statue and its base in 2022. We are grateful to Anna Garnett of the Petrie Museum for coming to Swansea in order to announce this. As far as we know, this is the first time dispersed items from the Wellcome collection have been physically reunited. Djedhor has been placed in the House of Death gallery just opposite the Domestic Piety case and our mummification table. He will be a welcome addition to our displays and will also make an excellent selfie opportunity (fig. 4)!

Fig. 4: Djedhor the Saviour on display

Another newly launched display this weekend is a large Soter-style funerary shroud, which was recently conserved by Courtney Lyons (Cardiff Conservation). EC168 was purchased by Wellcome in 1906 from the collection of Robert de Rustafjaell. For years it had remained folded and attached to a backing board in the Egypt Centre’s store. The shroud was evidently in a poor state and desperately needed conservation treatment, so we were delighted when Courtney was appointed to take on this rather difficult project. After countless hours of treatment, including stitching the ancient shroud to a modern backing board, the object was returned to Swansea just a few days before our anniversary event. It was put on display for the first time in the House of Death gallery where Courtney’s fantastic work can be appreciated by our visitors (fig. 5). Hopefully we can get Courtney to write a future blog post on her experience working with this object!

Fig. 5: Courtney with the shroud after its installation

We are grateful to everyone who attended these celebrations on Saturday, whether as presenters, volunteers to help the event run smoothly, or participants who attended to hear all about the wonderful achievements of the Egypt Centre. Here’s to many more years!

New Friends of the Egypt Centre Lecture Programme

The Friends of the Egypt Centre support the Egypt Centre and organise an exciting programme of ten monthly lectures per year (September to June). These events run separately from the Egypt Centre’s other online events, such as courses and conferences, and cater for all levels of understanding. You can choose to be a member of the Friends for an annual fee of as little as £10 or pay £3 per lecture (booking via Eventbrite). Details of the membership options can be viewed here.

The new season will kick off on Wednesday 27th September with the Friends AGM at 6.30pm (UK time), followed by a lecture (7pm UK time) by Don Ryan on the Valley of the Kings. This lecture will take place both in-person (Taliesin Studio) and via Zoom (but will not be recorded), with tickets for the online event available here.

 

27th September (Taliesin Studio and via Zoom)

Donald P. Ryan (Pacific Lutheran University)

The Valley of the Kings: research and discoveries in several of the lesser-known tombs

Abstract: The goal of the Pacific Lutheran University Valley of the Kings Project has been to investigate several of the undecorated and typically smaller tombs found amongst the larger tombs in Egypt's New Kingdom royal cemetery. Over the years, the project has excavated 11 such tombs including KV 60 (with its purported mummy of Hatshepsut), KV 21 (two 18th dynasty royal women), KV 48 (the vizier of Amenhotep II), and three small tombs KV 50, 51, 52) which contained the mummies of animals. The project's director, Donald P. Ryan, will provide a look at some of the expedition’s interesting discoveries.

Bio: Dr. Donald P. Ryan is an archaeologist affiliated with the Division of Humanities at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, USA, a Fellow of both the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, and a Research Associate of the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway. A veteran of many field expeditions, he is also the author of numerous scientific and popular articles and several books on archaeological subjects.

A summary of the talks can be found below while the full details can be found here.

25th October (Taliesin Studio and via Zoom)

Ersin Hussein (Swansea University)

Metal production and consumption: luxury, power, and identity in Ptolemaic Cyprus

 

15th November (Taliesin Studio and via Zoom)

Loretta Kilroe (The British Museum)

Site H25: living under colonial occupation in New Kingdom Nubia

 

13th December (Zoom only)

Heidi Köpp-Junk (Assistant Professor in Egyptian Archaeology at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, section for Egyptian temples, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw / Georg-August University of Göttingen)

Dewatering systems for wastewater and rain in ancient Egypt: the latest research on the water systems in the temple of Athribis and Tuna el-Gebel

 

17th January (Zoom only)

Kristin Thompson (The Amarna Project)

Unknown royal statuary from Amarna

 

28th February (Taliesin Mall Room and via Zoom)

Phil Parkes & MSc Conservation Practice Students (Cardiff University)

Conservation of artefacts from the Egypt Centre

 

13th March (Zoom only)

Victoria Jensen (Senior Research Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies University of California, Berkeley)

Deir el-Ballas: the royal residence that defeated the Hyksos

17th April

Martin Odler

Details to be confirmed.

 

15th May 2024 (Zoom only)

Marisol Solchaga (University of Manchester)

‘Offering-trays’ and ‘soul-houses’: reconsidering their function as ritual artefacts

 

19th June (Zoom only)

Paulína Šútorová (Trier University)

Lost women: rediscovering Ramesside queens

Countdown to Harrogate

The blog post for this week has been written by Egypt Centre volunteer and University of Birmingham student, Sam Powell, whose visit to Harrogate Museum in July 2022 led to the loan of the collection to the Egypt Centre.

As you may already be aware from social media posts and a series of YouTube videos, earlier this year, over 800 objects arrived in Swansea on loan from Harrogate in order to allow for in-depth recording and research to be undertaken. A condition of this loan was that the objects would be available via an online catalogue for researchers and the public alike, and so, as part of the Egypt Centre’s twenty-five year anniversary celebrations due to take place in October this year, the Harrogate Egyptian Collection will be launched hosted by Abaset Collections (fig. 1)!

Fig. 1: Forty days to go!

As part of my PhD research visits in 2022, I visited the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate to examine a wooden funerary figure in their collection (fig. 2). During my visit, staff mentioned that they would like to utilise their ancient Egyptian collection more effectively, and reach a wider audience. Of course, my first thought was to recommend the Egypt Centre as the ideal place for the objects to undergo full cataloguing and research given the fantastic experience I had working with the collection in Swansea, both as a volunteer, student, and also in creating the Egypt Centre Online Collection (Abaset) for them.

Fig. 2: Catalogue entry for the female figure

Abaset Collections came about as a result of my frustrations as a user of online catalogues for my own research, and so I worked closely with the Egypt Centre team to create a bespoke application that focuses on the user experience and engagement with the objects. The Egypt Centre Online Collection launched in October 2020, and was very timely given the temporary closure of the museum to the public due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Online Collection has proven a valuable asset for the museum, with easy access via mobile devices, high-quality photography of the objects, 3D models, and easy-to-search data to explore. Trails in a variety of languages including English, Welsh, Arabic, Spanish, and Hungarian allow for different themes and topics to be tailored for different audiences. These elements will also be available for the Harrogate Egyptian Online Collection.

All 813 objects from Harrogate have already been photographed from several angles (almost 4000 photos), and the Egypt Centre team and Swansea University students, along with several specialists in different object types, have been working tirelessly to hunt down provenances of objects, translate the names of the deceased, trace auction details, and categorise pottery types in order to populate the data within the online catalogue. This is still very much a work in progress, so not all the objects will be fully catalogued at the time of the launch (fig. 3). One of the best things about Abaset (in my opinion!) is the ability to update information in real-time. This means as soon we know something new about an object, it’s instantly available to everyone!

Fig. 3: Stelae in the Harrogate collection

We really hope you enjoy exploring the absolutely incredible collection of objects that make up the Harrogate Egyptian collection; it’s been so exciting sharing in the discoveries surrounding the objects (with many more to come, I’m sure!). The Harrogate Egyptian Online Collection will be launched on 7^th October, so keep your eyes peeled on the day for the link to the site, and please do share any feedback you have about the software and the objects themselves!

Registration for the Egypt Centre’s anniversary celebrations (which will include both the launch of this new online collection, and a presentation about the Egypt Centre Online Collection) is available here.

For a brief preview of the Harrogate Egyptian Collection, see the newly released video below, the fourth in the series on the Harrogate collection.