For centuries, ancient Egypt has been a mystery and a source of inspiration for the West. Reproductions of obelisks, sphinxes, and pyramids were mounted in public squares, halls, cemeteries, and other urban spaces. Ancient Egyptian culture inspired literature, film, dance, music, fashion, and design. Egyptian artifacts in Western museums appeal to audiences to this day.
The Royal BC Museum (RBCM)’s new exhibit, Egypt: The Time of the Pharaohs, is the latest expression of this fascination.
“The idea of sacred spaces and places is central to this exhibition, to the meta narrative,” says RBCM head of learning Janet MacDonald. “You basically start with the environment, the landscape being so important for the birth of a civilization, and then from the environment spring to gods, and then you move into what a pharaoh is.”
In the past, exhibitions on ancient Egypt focused mostly on pyramids, death rituals, and treasures of pharaohs, but there is more information available on ancient Egypt today as a result of recent archaeological work. This particular exhibit highlights everyday lives, beliefs, celebrations, and occupations of people from different social ranks in ancient Egyptian society through 300 original artifacts, some 4,500 years old.
“One of the exceptional things about this exhibition is it’s not just three-dimensional pieces,” says MacDonald. “There are all these wonderful models of temples, of workshops… There is a large model where you can actually look at where the workers lived.”
Artifacts and models are animated in the exhibit through use of multimedia. Visitors get a chance to follow a mummification process and learn how to write with hieroglyphs on a touch screen. However, the museum chose not to display any human remains or mummies.
“Sarcophagi are still there, beautiful cartonnage are still there, mummification process is there in multimedia,” says MacDonald, “but human remains will not be there.”
Created in partnership with exhibit developers MuseumsPartner from Austria, Egypt: The Time of the Pharaohs is a touring exhibition including materials from the Egyptology collections of the University of Aberdeen Museums, the Roemer- and Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, the Ägyptisches Museum and Papyrussammlung in Berlin, and the Gustav-Lübcke-Museum in Hamm. RBCM staff travelled to Lokschuppen Exhibition Centre in Germany to view the exhibition and meet the curators in June 2017.
“The challenge was that that exhibition was about 1,500 square metres, so it was twice the size of our temporary gallery,” says MacDonald. “We spent the day walking around and checking out the exhibition. We wanted to keep the narrative thread; we had to break it apart and bring it back together again to fit half the size of what was there.”
Wafaa El Saddik, the first female general director of The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, will give a talk at the opening of the exhibition on her work in the warehouses and stores of that museum. The exhibit will also feature the “It’s Complicated” discussion series.
“There are some interesting and important conversations around contested and uncontested remains, should they be on display or not,” says MacDonald. “I think that’s kind of the really interesting conversation within this visitor experience going forward; doing this, we will hear from people.”
Another conversation that might happen behind the scenes is based around ownership and repatriation of antiquities. Looting and destruction of art and antiquities in the Middle East took a high toll in recent years as a result of conflicts in the region. Today, Egypt is campaigning for the repatriation of artifacts in foreign collections.
“Between September and December, expect to have those dialogue conversations and panel discussions,” says MacDonald. “We’ll pull those in.”
Egypt: The Time of the Pharaohs
Various times, Friday, May 18 to Monday, December 31
Various prices, Royal BC Museum
royalbcmuseum.bc.ca