The Conservator’s Art: Preserving Egypt’s Past

The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley will display rare artifacts from its vast Egyptian collection in a fascinating exhibition that will explore the conservation of our cultural past. Included are crocodile mummies that recently underwent CT scans at Stanford Medical School as well as statuary, mummy portraits, amulets, and one of only 30 known “reserve heads” used in Egyptian burial practices. Of the 3.8 million objects in the Hearst’s collection, the Egyptian artifacts represent some of the most important.

Supported in part by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), the exhibition is a memorial to Egyptologist and Berkeley Professor Cathleen “Candy” Keller, who passed away last year and was originally lead curator for the show.

The Egyptian collection was formed when Phoebe Hearst met archaeologist George A. Reisner on her first trip to Egypt in early 1899. Between 1899 and 1905, he collected approximately 17,000 objects, ranging from the Predynastic to Coptic times (over 4,000 years). Almost all of his finds were impeccably documented in notes, maps, plans, and photographs, some of which will appear in the exhibition.

In addition to Reisner, Mrs. Hearst also commissioned British archaeologists Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt to collect at the Greek and Roman site of Tebtunis during the1899–1900 season. Many of the artifacts featured in the exhibition are from these excavations.

The opening reception is Thursday, April 29th from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The event is free but space is limited. RSVP is required at the museum website.

The exhibit will run until spring 2011. General admission to the museum is free of charge.

Hearst Museum

Related posts:

1. Ancient Egyptian exhibit set for five-week run at CSUB
2. Egypt through the lens of two British photographers 150 years apart
3. Tutankhamun’s Funeral at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. “Out of the Tomb, Into the Light” Photography Exhibition
5. Photography exhibition highlights more than a century of archaeological cooperation between Europe and Egypt

Tags: American Research Center in Egypt, Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, preserving egypt

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Exhibitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.