Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead/Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology - Museums Association

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Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead/Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

Simon Stephens on two museums with fantastic collections of material from ancient Egypt, but very different resources to present them

Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead at the British Museum (BM) is a typical blockbuster exhibition in terms of its scale and ambition.

It is backed by a strong marketing campaign and national media coverage. There are loans from museums overseas, although the vast majority of artefacts come from the BM’s collection of 100,000 Egyptian items.

Ten minutes’ walk from the BM, the Petrie Museum, which is part of University College London (UCL), holds another remarkable Egyptology collection. The Petrie has about 80,000 Egyptian objects, but the museum operates in a very different financial environment.

It recently revamped its galleries, but did so on a limited budget. Whereas the Book of the Dead is sponsored by energy giant BP, the new graphics panels at the Petrie are funded by the museum’s Friends.

The Book of the Dead is being held in the Reading Room, which the BM is using to stage temporary exhibitions until its £135m World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre is completed in 2013.

The Petrie was hoping to have moved to a new home at UCL last year, which would also have included a temporary exhibition space, lecture facilities and a reading room. But a major partner pulled out in 2009 and the plan was abandoned.

The Petrie is still hoping to move as it is in a cramped space that is up a staircase on a hard-to-find street. It is waiting for the UCL masterplan to progress but, until a new home is found, it is making the best of what it’s got.

Detail in small things

While there’s a headlong rush to secure tickets for the Book of the Dead at the British Museum, the Petrie has a new banner outside that simply says: “We are open to the public.” The museum has also introduced new signage on the staircase leading to the entrance. These give visitors a flavour of what to expect inside.

Previously, visitors had to go through a storage area to enter the galleries, but this space has now been converted to give a more welcoming impression. Graphic panels introduce the museum’s founders: Amelia Edwards, whose bequest supported the museum and UCL’s department of Egyptian archaeology and philology, which were both created in 1892; and William Flinders Petrie, who sold his large collection of Egyptian antiquities to UCL.

But the museum also introduces other people to visitors: the Egyptians who worked with Petrie and made his excavations possible.

Inside the main galleries the museum has retained its style of visible storage displays. The objects don’t have individual labels, although there is basic information such as their museum number.

But as part of the revamp the museum has introduced 78 interpretation panels that explain what the groups of objects are, where they are from and why they are important. Unlike the BM, which has lots of large Egyptology objects, the Petrie’s collection often highlights small everyday artefacts such as combs, hair curlers and shaving razors.

The dense visible storage style remains, but the museum has moved some display cases to create a more open feel. A new space has been provided for study, talks and events.

Like many museums with limited resources, the Petrie is also turning to digital technology to makes its collections more accessible. All 80,000 objects are available online in 2D and the museum is working on creating 3D digital images. And visitors can now use 3D image kiosks at the museum to virtually pick up objects and rotate them to see them from different angles.

Atmospheric journey

The Book of the Dead at the BM uses the museum’s collection of Book of the Dead papyri to explore ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife. The book is not a single text, but a compilation of spells to help the dead safely navigate the netherworld.

The papyri are fragile and light-sensitive but, as has been done before, the exhibition designers have turned this to their advantage by using low-light levels to take visitors on an atmospheric journey through the afterlife.

The exhibition is divided into 11 sections, starting with an introduction and ending with a display of the longest Book of the Dead in the world, the 37 metre-long Greenfield Papyrus, shown in public in its entirety for the first time.

The exhibition itself is a long one and a bit one-paced at times, but it does provide some fascinating insights into the complex belief systems of ancient Egyptians. The objects are beautifully presented and the accompanying interpretation is well written and clear, as you would expect from the BM.

The quotes from some of the spells are great and it would have been good to see more of these rich texts. A favourite of mine was: “O Rerek-snake, take yourself off, Geb and Shu have arisen against you, for you have eaten a mouse, which Ra detests and you have chewed the bones of a putrid cat.”

With quotes such as this to play with, at times I felt the exhibition underplayed the drama. But overall, visitors seemed to be getting a lot out of the experience. There is plenty of supporting material for family groups and schools, both online and at the museum. There are also two multimedia guides, one for adults, and another for kids.

Despite the gap in resources between the BM and the Petrie, both are attempting to find ways of shedding light on a civilisation that is familiar but at the same time very alien. As Stephen Quirke, a curator at the Petrie, says, it is about “rehumanising the past”. Hopefully the Petrie will find a new home that will allow more people to see it do this.

Project data

Book of the Dead, British Museum, London

Cost £1m
Sponsor BP
Curator John Taylor
Exhibition design Land Design Studio
Graphics BM
Project management BM
Digital media design and production Clay
Design media installation Sysco
Lighting design DHA Design
Interactives MER Services
Graphic production BAF Graphics
Display cases Glasbau Hahn, Manfred Frank
Quantity surveyor Greenway Associates
Transportation Constantine
Exhibition ends 6 March

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

Cost £62,000
Main funders Friends of the Petrie Museum, UCL
Curators Debbie Challis, Stephen Quirke
Design Lucienne Roberts
Project management Tonya Nelson, museum manager



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