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:

VP Michael Worton presenting Ramdane Kamal with his graduation certificate, September 2013

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by  Chris Webb

Although a James Bond reference may be a tenuous link to the Petrie Museum, it is the literal, or rather chronological, duration of the shiny, super-hard compressed allotropes of carbon that had us titillated at the recent timekeeper event. On the evening of the 25th April, we welcomed back our resident Timekeeper Cathy Haynes who was joined by the Creative Director of the Institute of Making, Zoe Laughlin. The Institute is a multidisciplinary research club for those interested in the made world, and incidentally, our neighbours at UCL. The objective: to examine the material world of time and decay, and gain a better understanding of the way the world views time.

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Guest Blogger: Chris Webb

The 18th April saw another fascinating event in the Petrie Museum’s popular timekeeper series, hosted by our own timekeeper in residence, Cathy Haynes. We were asked; how easy do you find it to remember the details and order of past events? Many people through history have pondered on this… Indeed, when Mark Twain wanted to teach his children history he invented a new kind of 3-D timeline by plotting out historical events in his garden and walking them through it, oddly, this was based on the monarchs of England!

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