"Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London" presents some 200 antiquities from a revered collection.

The founding of Egyptian archaeology by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) is celebrated in Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London. This touring exhibition of some 200 objects and works of art from predynastic times through the Late Roman period provides insight into the lives of ancient Egyptians both common and royal. Currently at the Columbus Museum of Art, South Carolina (January 27-June 8, 2008), it travels next to the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Florida (June 28-November 2, 2008) and the University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington (March 14-June 14, 2009).

Sir Flinders Petrie and a New Museum

The show's overriding theme is the origins of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, established through bequest at University College London in 1892 by British author and traveler Amelia Edwards (1831-1892). It was named after professor of Egyptian archaeology Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie.

A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877), a description of Edwards' journeys in the land of the pharaohs, sparked Englishmen's interest in ancient Egyptian art and architecture. The neglect of the country's archaeological sites stirred the writer to create the Egypt Exploration Fund (1882) and donate her Egyptian antiquities to University College's museum, a collection supplemented by Flinders Petrie's finds from his organized and systematic excavations.

The Exhibition

Excavating Egypt... explains various aspects of ancient Egyptian history, art, daily life and material culture through:

• funerary objects (a sarcophagus, canopic jars, a gold mummy mask and religious texts on papyrus);
• everyday items (cosmetic and writing implements, jewelry, games, builders' models, tools, weaponry and weights and measures);
• secular and religious sculpture, including a rare portrait of Pharaoh Khufu (ca. 2331-2528 B.C.), the Old Kingdom builder of the Great Pyramid;
• royal art from the reign of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.); and
• a panel portrait from the Roman occupation.

Archival photographs, documents and Sir Flinders Petrie's excavation notes and journals describe archaeology's infancy and Egyptology as a distinct field of scientific inquiry.

Amarna

A portion of the exhibition deals with the archaeological site of Amarna, the Middle Egyptian capital (Akhetaten) of the New Kingdom pharaoh Akhenaten. It was from there that the visionary ruler's attempts at monotheism were both revolutionary and short-lived. This remote desert location, Akhenaten's seat of power, permitted him to refute Egypt's polytheistic beliefs, deviate from its centuries-old artistic standards and promulgate his new solar religion in sculpture and architecture.

A Balustrade Depicting the Royal Family (ca. 1352-1344) is a calcite railing fragment similar to one in the touring exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs. Most likely a relief from a ramp in Akhenaten's Great Palace, the work depicts the ruler, his queen Nefertiti and their eldest of six daughters, Meretaten, in hieratic scale, each figure's importance reflected by his or her height. Proceeding on a upwardly inclined ground line, the pharaoh, his spouse and the princess offer libations in four vessels to the Aten, Akhenaten's deity. The god's solar disk emits rays ending in hands.

The physical proportions of the king and his family are exaggerated. Their elongated limbs, bulbous hips and fleshy thighs, all characteristic of Amarna art from Akhenaten's early reign, were perhaps inspired by a pathological condition of the ruler.

The sensitively rendered and naked Torso of a Princess (ca. 1344-1336 B.C.) from Amarna was most likely part of a larger family composition. In keeping with Akhenaten's beliefs, the delicate statue could be gently bathed by the sun's rays, allowing it to emerge from the block of stone from which it was carved. In traditional Egyptian religion, children were symbols of rebirth. According to the Atenist creed, they represented the nature of creation, hence the attention paid to the royal children in sculpture.

Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology from University College London is a special exhibition as superlatively organized as its accompanying scholarly catalogue.

Source:

• Trope, Betsy Teasley, Stephen Quirke and Peter Lacovara, et al. Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London (exh. cat.). Atlanta, GA: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2005.