Artefacts of Excavation: the international distribution of Egyptian finds from British excavations 1880-1980

From the 1880s to the 1980s British excavations in Egypt resulted in the discovery of tens of thousands of ancient Egyptian objects. This included unique discoveries at iconic sites such as the tombs of Egypt's first rulers at Abydos, the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, the ancient city of Tell el-Amarna and vast animal cemeteries at Saqqara. A large proportion of the recovered objects, however, were distributed to an estimated 200 museums around the world before they were fully documented or published. Consequently, before any proper analysis of these excavations can be undertaken, considerable research time has to be invested in identifying where objects are so that they can be studied. To date, such searches have been piecemeal, dependent upon a researcher's regional or chronological interests. 'Artefacts of Excavation' is a more ambitious project that will create a valuable central resource for the relocation and re-contextualization of these objects, and will seek to transform our understanding of the role of these distributions in the development of archaeology and museology. By charting the nature of the relationships between objects, people and places that were created through a century of finds distribution from British excavations in Egypt we will transform our understandings of the historically contingent construction of ancient Egypt in museums and of the disciplinary development of archaeology and museology from both a global and local perspective.

These goals will be achieved by documenting for the first time the scope, scale and complexity of these distributions. This will be made possible by the skills of the project team, who will bring together their knowledge and experience of Egyptian archaeology, museum practice, digital technologies and archival research to bring dispersed collections back together virtually in a central, publicly accessible online resource that will enhance the potential for curatorial work with these collections. In so doing this project will provide a model of knowledge exchange between archaeological specialists and museum practitioners, which in turn will be of cultural benefit to the public through improved displays and collections information. It will also directly benefit archaeologists working in the field in Egypt, including our Egyptian colleagues, who are today re-excavating many of the key sites previously examined, but which were largely unpublished or else only partially published, by previous generations of British fieldworkers.

Investigation of such finds distribution will make it possible to examine the local, national, international, and colonial identities that were negotiated as different people and institutions vied for a share of excavated material and sought to influence the direction of work in Egypt itself. Such excavations were largely conducted at a time when the colonial project saw museum institutions established across the globe, while collections expanded considerably, but it was also the period that witnessed the establishment of archaeology as an academic discipline. By exploring the distribution of objects from excavations to museums, and the voluminous correspondence that accompanied these exchanges, this project will challenge the commonly held view that excavation in the field and museum work formed two areas of practice and through archival research demonstrate their symbiotic relationship. We will explore the processes of 'artefaction' that occurred both in the field in Egypt and in museums, in which Egyptian objects transformed from their 17th-19th century status of individual curios to polyvalent artefacts whose meaning was socially constructed through shifting links to specific places, objects, people, and institutions. Through detailed case studies of 9 different institutions across the UK, Commonwealth, and the globe these complex relations can be explored, transforming how we understand contemporary attitudes to the Egyptian past.

Beneficiaries:

(a) The major beneficiaries of this research outside of academia will be public museums not only in the UK, but also across Europe and the world - an estimated 200 institutions. There are 112 museums in the UK alone that curate many thousands of objects acquired during British excavations in Egypt (Serpico 2006). A scoping exercise conducted in July 2012 in preparation for this proposal established that outside of the UK at least a further 80 institutions hold objects from such fieldwork (Stevenson in review). Correspondence with curators across the world shows that there is great interest in acquiring more information about the objects in their care and for the resources to help identify, contextualise and interpret artefacts sent to their institutions over the course of the last century. We will engage those who manage such collections at the outset of the project through direct email contact in order to establish what information would be most useful to them on the project website. This will open a dialogue with such museum professionals to establish what objects they curate and share information about the background context to these objects and their acquisition in Egypt. Such knowledge exchange can, in turn, inform external museums' own collections management and documentation of these collections. In this process the website will be a fundamental portal of knowledge exchange providing information on sites, excavators and transcriptions of archives in London, Boston and elsewhere (e.g. Philadelphia) that relate to the distribution of collections around the world and can facilitate identification of objects in collections. This information will allow museums to more effectively respond to research enquiries about their Egyptian collections and use them creatively in Education (e.g. for key state 2 history) and public exhibitions.

(b) The public will also be major cultural beneficiaries. Objects often found their way into collections through the activities of local individuals. Stories of distribution of how Egyptian objects came to be in places as far flung as Aberdeen and Cape Town offer a dynamic way of reconnecting the public to artefacts in their local museums. We will seek to identify individual biographies that have resonance with communities in which Egyptian objects are now located and link these to wider histories. These object biographies will be a feature of the project's website. We will also host a series of public events in the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Egypt Exploration Society, London and Cairo, to engage the public. These will include public talks, object handling sessions, and a temporary (potentially touring) exhibition pulling together object, documentary and photographic materials that illustrate the history of British excavations in Egypt. By liaising with museum curators, promotion through events in and outside the museum, we will encourage individuals beyond the project team to submit object biographies of Egyptian objects in other museum collections that can be hosted on the website.

(c) Students in the University of Oxford and in Museum Studies more generally will be beneficiaries through numerous opportunities to volunteer in various aspects of the project's activities, including voluntary experience within the Ashmolean Museum as objects are prepared for incorporation in the website's resources and their contextualization is recorded as examples of how to link excavated collections with archives and published excavation reports. In this way individuals will gain valuable experience in working in Museum environments, enhancing future job prospects for some of them by developing transferable and employable skills. There will also be opportunities to contribute to the website content by authoring object biographies