Egypt
Jadaliyya (Mohamed Elshahed)
- Repatriation Issues Raised In Response To The Chaos
Business Week (Vernon Silver) The day before Egypt's revolution began, the nation's then-antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, demanded that Berlin's Neues Museum hand over its bust of Queen Nefertiti. Three weeks earlier, Hawass warned New York...
- Artefacts Donated To Yaounde National Museum
crtv.com The Egyptian Ambassador to Cameroon, Ibrahim Hafez, has made a significant donation of the art objects to Cameroon’s Minister of Culture, Ama Tutu Muna. The consignment of Ancient Egyptian artefacts are composed of a collection rare art objects...
- Egyptian Objects Before Egyptology
Brooklyn Museum (Tom Hardwick) My work in the Wilbour Library involves keeping an eye out for books the Library needs, and carrying out archival research into the history of the Egyptian collections in support of the Library’s educational mission. In...
- Remaking Egypt's Shelves
Egypt Today (Michael Kaput) With grand plans for a museum in every governorate, the SCA is looking to spring history from its tourist trap. The building that houses the office in charge of the nation’s museums at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)...
- Creative Spaces
Creative Spaces Thanks to Tom Gray for letting me know about the new Creative Spaces venture. Tom is working with the British Museum and 8 other major British galleries and museums on a new social media project called Creative Spaces. Creative Spaces...
Egypt
The Case Against the Grand Egyptian Museum
Jadaliyya (Mohamed Elshahed)
A Modern Museum for an Ancient Nation?
With the French Revolution came the first truly public museum in the world, the Louvre, which opened its doors in 1793. Private collections owned by wealthy individuals were made accessible to the middle and upper classes in major European cities roughly since the eighteenth century. Access to such collections by a greater public was seen as one of the engines of European enlightenment. With the emergence of public museums came a new approach to art history that considered the views of the beholder, rather than just the viewpoint of the artist. New fields of knowledge became essential because museums were national spaces where identities were negotiated through the ritual of viewing untouchable objects.
Power relations between object, owner, institution, and viewer were constructed based on class relations: aristocrats owned precious objects that could be viewed by a wider audience within an institutional setting. Once objects were clearly identified as unfamiliar, such as Pharaonic, new dimensions including race and exoticism were added to the museum experience. Awe-inspiring ancient art from faraway places stimulated a wave of travel, treasure hunting, and exploration to destinations such as Egypt.
- Repatriation Issues Raised In Response To The Chaos
Business Week (Vernon Silver) The day before Egypt's revolution began, the nation's then-antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, demanded that Berlin's Neues Museum hand over its bust of Queen Nefertiti. Three weeks earlier, Hawass warned New York...
- Artefacts Donated To Yaounde National Museum
crtv.com The Egyptian Ambassador to Cameroon, Ibrahim Hafez, has made a significant donation of the art objects to Cameroon’s Minister of Culture, Ama Tutu Muna. The consignment of Ancient Egyptian artefacts are composed of a collection rare art objects...
- Egyptian Objects Before Egyptology
Brooklyn Museum (Tom Hardwick) My work in the Wilbour Library involves keeping an eye out for books the Library needs, and carrying out archival research into the history of the Egyptian collections in support of the Library’s educational mission. In...
- Remaking Egypt's Shelves
Egypt Today (Michael Kaput) With grand plans for a museum in every governorate, the SCA is looking to spring history from its tourist trap. The building that houses the office in charge of the nation’s museums at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)...
- Creative Spaces
Creative Spaces Thanks to Tom Gray for letting me know about the new Creative Spaces venture. Tom is working with the British Museum and 8 other major British galleries and museums on a new social media project called Creative Spaces. Creative Spaces...