Every year on or around May 18, museums around the world celebrate International Museum Day, a day that focuses on museums and the role they play in our ever-changing society. This year’s International Museum Day theme is “Museum and Memory,” which reflects beautifully the role of museums. The NCMA’s collection—like that of every museum—preserves the memory of cultures and people, past or present.  By visiting the permanent collection galleries of West Building, you can discover these cultures and eras, and create your own memories as well.

The NCMA is celebrating International Museum Day on Wednesday, May 18, with free admission to 30 Americans, a superb exhibition presenting the works of contemporary African American artists, and a free screening of Purvis of Overtown, a documentary on contemporary artist Purvis Young, an icon of Black culture whose work is featured in 30 Americans. East Building will be open until 8 pm for those attending the screening and visiting 30 Americans.

This year during International Museum Day a special focus is also placed on Africa and highlighting its important cultural contributions to the world. Come celebrate International Museum Day and African heritage at the NCMA on May 18! Visit the African collection in West Building until 5 pm (and as the NCMA’s unofficial spokesperson for IMD, I can make a shameless plug for my own galleries—Egypt is in Africa, so take a look at the ancient Egyptian galleries as well and marvel at the long history and cultural diversity of this fascinating continent). 

Happy International Museum Day to all!

In honor of this year’s theme “Museum and Memory,” we want to hear about your most  memorable NCMA experience. Share a story or a photo on our Facebook wall by May 18 and we’ll randomly select one person to win an NCMA prize pack.

The mysterious message

“Ô living ones who are upon the earth who shall pass by this tomb of mine, faring north or south, and who shall utter ‘1000 loaves of bread and 1000 jugs of beer for the owner of this tomb—his nickname is Golden Boy,’ I shall intercede for them in the necropolis. But for any man who shall enter this tomb in his impurity, I shall wring his neck like a bird! He shall be judged for it by the Great God.”*

Signed, Golden Boy

Golden Boy’s message might sound rather cryptic, but it’s in fact quite simple. Our glittery friend is inviting you stop by the Egyptian galleries to visit him next time you come to the NCMA.  If you and your family are interested in all things Egyptian, the best day to visit would be April 30, during our A Date with Egypt family fun day!

Come and immerse yourself in ancient Egyptian culture by taking a gallery tour with an ancient Egyptian guide or participating in the archaeological dig (don’t forget your archaeologist hat). You also can dress up as an Egyptian princess or a pharaoh, join in some art-making activities, and meet the NCMA’s only archaeologist. Oh! And don’t forget to say hello to Golden Boy and offer him some bread and beer (his favourite treats) by quietly whispering the following words: ‘hetep dee inek heh tah heh kheneket en kah en nehen neboo’.**

Mark your calendars for A Date with Egypt on April 30!

We’re looking forward to seeing you.

* This type of text (what Egyptologists call the ‘Address to the Living’) is found at the entrance to Old Kingdom mastaba tombs as an invitation to passers-by to enter the tomb and give offerings. Those failing to do so would be sued by the deceased when they got to heaven.

**An offering of 1000 loaves of bread and 1000 jugs of beer that I give for Golden Boy’s soul.

Golden Boy is a star. In the second post of today’s triple-header, Caroline tells us about our hero’s photo shoot.

Roll out the red carpet! Bring out the spotlights!

His blue helmet hair perfectly coiffed and his bling worn proudly on his new mummy body, a rejuvenated Golden Boy poses for the camera. Click! A golden grin. Click! A twinkle in the eye. The camera loves him.

No paparazzi shots for our Golden Boy! Nothing will do but a studio portrait taken by his favourite photographers, Karen and Chris, who have been following him on his incredible journey. Golden Boy’s best shot, carefully selected by his curatorial agent, and an accompanying bio appear on pages 40-41 of the Museum’s Handbook of the Collections. Shots from this photo session will also appear in the Systematic Catalogue of the Ancient Egyptian Collection, to be published in 2011.

If you buy a copy of the Handbook (currently available at the Museum Store), he might autograph it for you . . .

A systematic catalogue is a book that features every single painting or artefact in a collection. SysCats (that’s what curators call this type of catalogue) are very important because they show the world (the general public and scholars alike) what we have in our Museum, and they encourage further academic research. The Museum is planning a series of systematic catalogues, a volume for each of the collections in its holding. Curator Dennis Weller published the first of these catalogues, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, which you can purchase at the Museum Store. (It’s a fabulous book!)

Second in the series, the Egyptian SysCat will feature all 37 artifacts, each beautifully illustrated with recent colour photographs. The catalogue entries will include a very detailed description (what is it, what was it used for, what does it mean, how old is it, where does it come from, who owned it before us, etc.), a translation of the hieroglyphs, publications in which the objects appeared … basically,  everything you always wanted to know about our Egyptian collection!

It’s long and tedious work (just ask Dennis), and I have been studying the Egyptian artefacts for five years in order to write this catalogue. Conservator Noelle Ocon and I have taken x-rays of several objects (including the coffins of Amunred and Djed Mut), Billy and I took the grain mummy for a CT scan last summer, and I have spent endless hours doing research and deciphering hieroglyphs. We even had a conservation scientist (think CSI for art) come to the NCMA to take samples of various pigments for analysis.

There are a few more things we want to do—take a sample for thermoluminescence dating and look at an object or two under ultraviolet light—before we complete the research. That’s what is happening this week. Noelle will set up lab equipment in the gallery in order to do a complete conservation assessment of the collection.

While the gallery are closed, you can certainly stand quietly by the stanchions to peek at the activities within. However, we do ask that you not disturb Noelle, me, or any staff member working in the gallery. If you have questions, just send an e-mail or post a comment on the blog. Thank you for your consideration.

Support for this research has been provided in part by GlaxoSmithKline and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ann and Jim Goodnight Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.

While walking the ancient art galleries (Egyptian, Classical and Mesoamerican) and keeping a keen eye out for hands gravitating towards artefacts that cannot be touched, I realised that I missed chatting with visitors in the galleries. Adults and kids came to me with comments, questions, requests to take photos with me (!) and praises about the new Egyptian galleries and the West Building. Their enthusiasm was infectious. How can working in the galleries not be fun? It’s tiring, but it’s fun when there are plenty of people around. Over the course of the weekend, I had good laughs with visitors and answered many questions about a variety of things; however, three questions came up over and over. I thought I would share these questions and their answers with you.

What is gesso? Gesso is a primer of fine plaster and glue used in art to smooth surfaces—notably wood—on which paint was applied (gypsum plaster and whiting plaster (powdered limestone) were used in ancient Egypt). The Egyptians also used gesso on objects that were to be gilded with gold leaf. You will see gesso listed on labels for wooden objects such as that of Figure of a Man, Model of Boat, and Coffin of Amunred as well as that of Golden Boy’s Gilded Mummy Covering.

What does b.c.e. / c.e. mean? b.c.e. stands for ‘Before Common Era’ and c.e. for ‘Common Era.’ This system of numbering the years is increasingly becoming the norm for museums and the wider scholarly community.  It replaces the traditional designations of B.C. (for “Before Christ”) and A.D. (for “Anno Domini” or “In the year of Our Lord”) which are now regarded as insensitive to non-Christian religious traditions. You will find the b.c.e. or c.e. designation used in galleries where there is ancient art and where the collections span both eras.

How do you cast a bronze statue? Rather than trying to describe the very complicated process that is the lost wax method, I will simply say this: the ancient Egyptians practiced lost wax casting thousands of years before Auguste Rodin was even born! (I know this question specifically referred to the Rodin bronzes, but as an Egyptologist, I always find ways to bring the attention back to Egypt!) If you don’t believe me, take a look at our bronze Isis and Horus in the Egyptian gallery (at the very back) next time you visit the Museum! And visit the Rodin Court and Garden as well; it’s right next to the Egyptian gallery (and that’s probably why I was asked that question so many times). I know I said I would share the answers to all the questions, but I think that for this one you might have to visit the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation website. You will find there the answer neatly illustrated with one of Rodin’s works.

My days as security guard are now over, but you will see me wandering in the galleries. I’m always available for a quick chat or a few questions.

Photo: Statue of King Senkamanisken in situ, Temple of Amun, Dangeil, Sudan. Reproduced by permission of the Berber-Abidiya Archaeological Project (click image for more information). All rights reserved.

After spending two weeks in Germany visiting fabulous Egyptian museums and collections, I headed south for the excavations at Dangeil. Those who have been following the blog will recall that last year there was nothing mentioned in the entries regarding any discovery we might have made. In truth, due to the sensitive nature of our research, I could not share with you our exciting 2008 discoveries.

But that is a thing of the past! Our exciting finds were published* recently in Sudan & Nubia, the journal of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society and I can now share them with you online.

In an archaeologist’s life, major and significant discoveries are rare. Normally, we find things interesting only to other specialists in the field. Occasionally, you find something absolutely mind-boggling, something that you can’t explain but know that somehow it’s very important… and it’s even better if that special something is actually beautiful and rare. That’s what happened last year at Dangeil.

We found magnificent granite statues of Napatan kings.

We found royal statues, can you imagine? Immediately, we knew we had something special because granite is not found in the area of Dangeil. The nearest granite quarry is at the Third Cataract, much further north, across the Bayuda Desert. Additionally, the artistic style and craftsmanship indicated that we were dealing with sculpture of the Napatan period (8^th-4^th century b.c.e.), rather than the Meroitic period (3rd century b.c.e to mid-3rd century c.e.). And that completely baffled us. What were these Napatan statues doing in Dangeil, a Meroitic site that has yet to reveal Napatan occupation?

Statues like the ones at Dangeil have been found at only two other sites in the Sudan: Napata, the first capital of Kush located near the Fourth Cataract (after which the Napatan period is named), and Dukki Gel, near Kerma, an ancient city near the Third Cataract, where the Napatans were very active (and later the Meroites, too). The statue cache at Napata was found by George A. Reisner (Harvard-Boston Expedition) in 1916 and that at Dukki Gel by Charles Bonnet and the Swiss Mission to Kerma in 2003.

Considering that the region of Meroe (the second capital of Kush, which gave its name to the Meroitic period) has so far revealed little evidence of royal Napatan occupation our discovery was surprising to say the least. In fact, some archaeologists who heard rumours of our find could not even believe we had found Napatan statues at our Meroitic site! Yet, there we were with three granite sculptures of powerful Napatan kings. Let me introduce them to you.

King Taharqo (690-664 b.c.e.), probably the most famous Kushite king who ruled Egypt during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (715-656 b.c.e.). His statue is the largest of all, weighing well over one ton (!).  While we have his body from shoulders to knees, and the statue base that includes his feet, we are still missing the lower legs and the head. (If you go back to my entry about my Tilley hat, you will see Taharqo from the back and me tracing the hieroglyphic inscription of the pillar onto a clear plastic sheet.)

King Senkamanisken (643-623 b.c.e.), whose statue is smaller but better preserved (as you can see from the picture above, he’s got a great body!). Once again, we’re missing his lower legs and head.

King Aspelta (593-568 b.c.e.), at least we think it’s Aspelta. Unlike the other two kings, we have his head and the base with the feet, but not his body! The name of the king is mentioned on the back pillar of the statue, generally between the shoulders and the knees… but we don’t have that part of the statue.  The facial features are very similar to statues of Aspelta from Napata and Dukki Gel, so it might actually be Aspelta.

We also have a small statue of a Meroitic queen, possibly the Kandake Amanitore.  We know the statue is Meroitic because of the iconography and artistic style. It was also carved out of locally available, poor quality sandstone.  There isn’t an inscription on the back of this statue, but because we have found over the years inscriptions mentioning or reliefs representing Amanitore, it might be her.  We know she build the temple we are currently digging, so why not?

As you might have guessed, we hoped to find the heads of Taharqo,  Senkamanisken and Amanitore during the 2009 season… but that was not to be. Instead we found interesting stratigraphy, post holes (lots of them), and earlier construction phases. However, with or without heads, we would like to find out how these statues ended up in Dangeil and why.  It might take a while, but we’re working on it.

* Julie R. Anderson and Salah eldin Mohamed Ahmed. What are these doing above the Fifth Cataract?!! Napatan royal statues at Dangeil. Sudan & Nubia 13 (2009):78-86.

The Berber-Abidiya Archaeological Project is a joint project of the British Museum, London, and the Sudan National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), Khartoum. The excavations are directed by Drs Julie R. Anderson (BM) and Salah eldin Mohamed Ahmed (NCAM).

Photo by Jon Himoff via Flickr

Over the last two and half weeks I have been travelling through Germany, visiting Egyptian collections and observing installations at various museums around the country: Berlin, Munich, Hildesheim, Leipzig, Bonn and Hanover. (Thanks to GSK for this incredible opportunity.)

My trip was timed so that I could see the Egyptian collection reinstalled in the Neues Museum in Berlin, which opened on October 17. Despite its name, the Neues Museum is not new. The original building dates back to 1843-1855; however, it was heavily damaged during the bombing of Berlin during WWII (fortunately it was closed in 1939 and its collections removed for safety). After the war, the Egyptian collection was installed in Charlottenburg (where I first saw it in 2004) until something could be done with the destroyed building.

What was done with the ruins of the building is absolutely phenomenal! The ruins were consolidated and then completed with new construction, where you see the old and the new in each room. The new sections are very subdued, both in colour (grey or beige) and construction.  The colour that remains is part of the old decorations: the ceiling tapestries representing the zodiac from Denderah or the painted murals of various important archaeological sites like Abu Simbel and Philae. Somehow it all works. And then you notice the fabulous artefacts…

Like the Egyptian collection soon to be reinstalled at the NCMA that of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin is thematic. You find a section on funeral cult with three enormous offering chapels,  another of the human figure throughout Egyptian art (which is organised chronologically within the theme), the art and culture of Sudan, the art of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and many more galleries filled to the gills with incredible art.

Queen Nefertiti has its own room, all by herself, and she looks absolutely stunning, staring in the distance at Helios, a few Classical galleries away. Egyptologists have a quirky sense of humour: Helios is the Greek god of the sun… and, during the reign of Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, there was only one god: Aten, the sun disc!

The Neues Museum was packed with visitors who came to look at the Egyptian collection and the Prehistory/Early History collection (there are basically two museums within the building). There were endless lines of people waiting to get through the doors. It was heartwarming to see so many Berliners wanting to check out their new museum and tourists to view the collections for the first time. I hope the same for the opening of our new building.

Mummy from the Musée du Louvre, Paris

Coffin and mummy with cartonnage covering of a man called Sa-Hor, son of Neb-Udjat. Ptolemaic Period. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Mummy with cartonnage trappings. Late Ptolemaic Period.Michael C. Carlos Museum, Atlanta.

Do you see what I see in these pictures? Do you recognise the shape that supports the various mummy coverings? Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yes, I’m thinking about a mummy! The mummy coverings at the Louvre, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and the Carlos Museum are all supported by a mummified body, the mummy to which the cartonnage plaques were afixed back in ancient time. I suggest we get a mummy for Golden Boy! Not a real mummy, of course, but a mummy-shaped mount that we could create here at the museum.

A mummy-shaped mount would offer excellent support to all the individual cartonnage pieces, including the helmet-mask, since it would be custom-made to fit each piece. Plus, the mummy shape will give Golden Boy much needed context, because the mount will give visitors an idea of how the gilded cartonnage pieces where used in ancient times.

What will Design and Conservation think of this crazy mummy-mount idea? Well, I guess you’ll find out with the next post… Stay tuned for the next episode in the Adventures of Golden Boy!

When we announced ourselves at the reception desk at Wake Internal Medicine Consultants, where Mr. Shireman had generously scheduled an appointment for a CT scan, the staff whispered excitedly that the ‘mummy people’ had arrived. Everybody was thrilled at the prospect of having such an old and unusual patient—the grain mummy is approximately 2500 years old. What an experience that was!

We were able to scan the grain mummy quickly because it is rather small and it neither moves nor has a heartbeat. (Tom, our head art handler who made a special box for it to travel, said it was the size of a foot-long sub at Jersey Mike’s). If it did move, we’d all be astounded because a grain mummy is a small bundle made up of grains (emmer wheat and/or barley) and Nile mud. It was given a vague human shape to resemble Osiris, the god of the underworld, and was wrapped up in linen bandages just like a real mummy and placed inside a small falcon-shaped coffin representing the funerary god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. Placed inside a tomb, the grain mummy symbolised fertility and the cycle of life, and was thought to aid the deceased be reborn in the afterlife.

As was hinted at on the x-ray we took at the Museum over a year ago and confirmed with the CT scan, the grains were mixed with the mud—a bit like chocolate chips in a cake. The scan also seems to indicate that the grains have disintegrated (or been eaten by insects?) over the centuries, leaving a network of cavities throughout the mud core. That was rather interesting, I thought, and could not have been seen without the scan.

Very few museums have studied their grain mummies using more advance technologies. That’s unfortunate because I would love to compare the scan of our grain mummy to that of a few others. Maybe there were different ways of making grain mummies or perhaps specific methods were used during specific historical periods or particular regions in Egypt. The results of the scan will be included in the catalogue of Egyptian art I am currently writing and hopefully it will inspire other museums to scan their grain mummies and help scholars find out more about them.

In addition to the Museum staff who worked on this project, I would like to thank Drs. Stuart Levin and Robert Lacin, who answered our call for assistance, Mr. Christopher Shireman for scheduling the scan, and Ms. Billie Jean Messer for working her magic with the scanner. I would also like to say hello to Kristen Shireman, budding Egyptologist, who was as interested in this as I was. Last but not least, I would like to thank GlaxoSmithKline for making my work at the NCMA possible.

In ancient Egypt, it was essential that an idealised representation of the facial features of the deceased be present on the exterior of the mummified body so that the soul might recognise its body after death. This tradition of external ornamentation of the mummy evolved greatly over the millennia, from the Old Kingdom plaster body coverings to mummy masks to mummy boards and cartonnage casings, and beaded nets to Roman painted shrouds and encaustic portraits.

During the Twenty-second Dynasty (circa 945-715 BCE), cartonnage casings became extremely popular. Cartonnage is a process similar to our modern papier maché, where strips of linen or papyrus were stiffened with gesso. Cartonnage casings entirely enveloped the mummy of the deceased, the head of the casing serving as a funerary mask. Strangely enough, cartonnage casings remind me of piñatas: the mummy is inserted within the papier maché case and it is sewn at the back, gessoed and decorated. The only way to get the mummy out is to smash it open (hence the piñata connotation). When cartonnage casings are displayed in museums, you can expect a mummy inside even if you can’t see it (a fact easily confirmed with x-rays).

Egyptian Gilded Mummy Covering, North Carolina Museum of Art, 75.1.1 (a.k.a. "Golden Boy")

Cartonnage was rather inexpensive, but the production of a full-body casing was time-consuming. A much simpler and more practical alternative was adopted early in the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BCE). Instead of body casings, artisans created separate cartonnage pieces that were secured to the outer layer of the mummy’s wrappings by the embalmers. Manufacturing a mummy covering in several pieces had major advantages: they could fit any mummy, could be mass-produced, and even purchased ready-made!

A complete set of cartonnage pieces would normally include a helmet mask for the head and shoulders, a pectoral for the chest, an apron for the legs, and soles for the feet, which were enclosed in a foot case. Additional pieces depicting various protective deities or other religious scenes were occasionally included. The mask, which was placed over the mummy’s head like a helmet, not only served as an idealised representation of the deceased, it was intended to protect the head against decapitation. You probably think I’m being funny, but Spell 43 of the Book of the Dead  was intended for ‘preventing a man’s decapitation in the realm of the dead’ because the Egyptians greatly feared being deprived of the ability to breath, see, speak, hear, and eat in the Netherworld. The other cartonnage pieces were decorated with religious vignettes and hieroglyphs to protect the deceased and facilitate their journey to the Afterlife.

Gilded mummy coverings–like our Golden Boy–were cartonnage pieces almost entirely covered with gold leaf rather than painted. In this instance, the gold was not only decorative, it was a symbol of permanence and immortality and emphasised the deceased’s connection to the sun god Ra. The mask often sported blue hair (symbol of rejuvenation) and the traditional religious motifs and hieroglyphs were incised or embossed in the gold, effectively protecting the deceased by their simple presence. Impressively, our gilded mummy covering is practically complete; the only piece missing is the foot case. Despite the fact that it is covered in gold, I think this artefact doesn’t always get the attention it deserves, perhaps because its function is difficult to understand.  Personally, I think he’s rather cute and I like his blue hair. His eyes are slightly uneven (one’s lower than the other) and the artisan even painted red veins in them!  And he’s got that serene golden smile…

Stay tuned for the next installment of The Adventures of Golden Boy, when our dazzling hero gets a visit from a conservator…