So long fair thee well, pip pip cheerio, We’ll be back soon…

Following the wise Dickensian ( /Lionel Bart) sentiment this will be the final blog post from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology for 2013 and we will be closed until March 2014 to have a fulgurating new light system installed. Despite the museum being closed, the collection is still active. We have a plethora of events and activities going on across campus and Camden, with further details here that will be leading towards a large summer celebration, something to look forward to after the excitement of Christmas.

We can also be followed online via twitter: @PetrieMuseEgypt and on our shiny new facebook page: Excavating Objects: Behind the scenes at the Petrie Museum or, if pictures are more your thing follow our instagram where we have a host of images of objects and events that show what a vibrant and diverse museum we are: @Petriemuseum

A small summary of our year:

Cultural Heritage fellowship 2012/13 Completion

An international project that was administered by Heritage without Borders, the British Council and UCL invited 8 Fellows from the Middle East and North Africa region to the UK to attend training, and tell us, about methods of community engagement in cultural institutions. In September 2013 our Fellows returned to present their community engagement projects and graduate from the project, it was a fantastic day and it was great to see all our Fellows again. Luckily, we are all still in contact and I’ve had loads of holiday invites I’m taking up in 2014. Following the success of this project, UCL and the British Council are now partnered to develop a Museum Training School in August 2014 that will encompass more facets of museum management and development and be open to applicants from around the world, a truly international venture!

Tour of the Nile on Itunes

the 3DPetrie team (@3DPetrie) launched their augmented reality app on Itunes, available to download for free. This app has received rave reviews and can be used by school children, teenagers and adults alike to access and interact, digitally, with objects from the Petrie collection in a augmented reality world, further information can be read here.

A Storm is Blowing

Following funding from AHRC The Petrie hosted a series of events and programmes that culminated in our Timekeeper in Residence exhibition this summer. This project brought academics and enthusiasts from a melange of disciplines, institutions and backgrounds to discuss our notion of time, how we discuss it and how we describe it. Cathy Haynes, the Timekeeper in Residence, curated the fantastic exhibition and has created a website detailing the project which involved our massive Eye of Ra festival in the Wilkins Terrace Gardens during a very tempestuous, but celebratory, July afternoon.

Meteorite finds

In August, Professor Thilo Rehren published his research on UC1037-40 that proved these iron beads from a tomb in Girzah were made of meteoric iron, the full story can be read here. This caused quite a stir among archaeologists and in the broader media, and we had an influx of visitors keen to see the ‘space beads’ (I’ll admit to calling them that a few times).

 

The above are but a few choice morsels of our year, and 2014 is already looking to be just as lively. So, Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

 

Edmund works at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology as the Projects Coordinator. He graduated from the Institute of Archaeology, UCLand plays sport for UCL almuni and ULU.