museums | Kemet Expert

Gatekeeping Virtual Kemet

Background to the project

In 2016 I wrote a blog post sharing a resource that I had worked on during my time as a museum curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which is part of the University of Cambridge. The idea for the virtual version of the Egyptian galleries came from a project that was based in English prisons. With the support of the Museum I applied for funding to provide resources for the public and for those who were incarcerated (the final version was saved in a format that could also be shared with prison education departments).

Virtual Kemet was the first of a number of African centred digital projects that I worked on during my 13 years at the museum. Others included photographic exhibitions on Nubian culture, temples in Egypt and Nubia, and the Origins of the Afro Comb project. Over the years many community members have contacted me to say how they found these resources useful for family learning, teaching, and (for some of those who were incarcerated) self-reflection. I was therefore surprised when people started contacting me saying that they could not longer access materials. Initially this related to the Origins of the Afro Comb Project web pages, which had be transferred from an external site to the museum’s pages. When members of the public tweeted to inform the museum, it responded by salvaging as much of the site as possible, this included museum objects but excluded all of the community stories that were meant to be archived as part of the project’s legacy. A search (below) on the website shows that none of the pages can be found.

Screenshot of a search result accessed 27/06/2022

Who controls access to knowledge and culture?

The longevity of digital cultural materials has long been recognised as a problem within museum and archive research. Funding often only covers the initial site and content formation and so subsequent maintenance relies on institutions to either apply for further external funding or to use core funds to finance continued access. There are, however, additional factors that need to be considered in regard to the allocation of funds to past projects. First, if the original curator is no longer at the institution it is less likely to receive the same attention or focus as work that is supported by a current member of staff. That is unless the institution is invested in the research and work. Directors, curators, and researchers alike will be more invested in their own research and exhibitions. Second, in institutions where the relevant community’s voice is unrepresented, culturally specific projects are less likely to be prioritised. Whereas there is little that can be done to change the outcome of the first point because it relates to the psychology of individuals. The second observation can the extent to which an institution is willing to decolonise the presentation of its collections. Both positions award cultural institutions a degree of power and control.

The case of virtual Kemet

When I realised that all of the resources were missing I contacted the museum. As noted, part of the Origins of the Afro comb site had been retrieved and made accessible. I was told that the Virtual Kemet site was no longer compatible and so it had been removed. Regarding the community comb stories and the other project sites, their content has apparently been lost. Fortunately, I retained copies and I have offered them to the museum. However, I was told that this could not be processed internally and would require a commitment of funding. My enquiry was immediately acknowledged by the member of the senior management team who I approached, but was ignored by the relevant second Deputy Director. Several months on from this conversation, the material remains inaccessible. The research for these resources was funded from external sources such as The Heritage Lottery, The British Academy, Arts Council England, Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Lankelly Chase Trust, The J.P. Getty Trust. It is fair to say that the focus on community engagement and outreach to vulnerable communities that I successfully undertook between 2003 and 2015 (with the support of the museum’s education team) brought kudos to the museum and University, as recognised by their promotion of my research at the time. The case of virtual Kemet raises important questions relating to how communities access their cultural heritage and whether museums actively and comprehensively decolonise the presentation of their collections.

In 2020 University of Cambridge Museums publicly declared their commitment to decolonising their collections writing:

“We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, with our Black friends, colleagues and visitors. As museums, we haven’t always been there. We should provide respectful spaces for everyone to be heard, share learning, and enjoy. But our collections were founded on and exist within unequal power structures. Without addressing this, we will continue to entrench that inequality.”

The declaration notes that “there is a long way for us to go. We are absolutely committed to going the distance”.

So this raises the question of whether Kemet is not viewed as a valid part of this process. The progress of decolonising this particular part of their collections was well under way long before 2020. It seems not only to have stalled but, for the most part, now been lost. Tackling colonial legacies and institutional racism takes more than a statement. It requires long term commitment and strategies to ensure that people can access their cultural heritage on their own terms and with the broadest possible scope.

Ancient Egypt beyond a colonial past

Presenting Ancient Egypt

The earliest religion in Kemet was animism. Like many traditional African religions, the Kemite version looked to nature in order to explain the world, and to provide spiritual support and protection. Animals played an important role within Kemite religion and were seen in two key capacities: (1) as representations of the gods on earth and (2) as symbolic guardians and protectors.

One particular aspect of this phenomenon was the subject of a special exhibition at Manchester Museum: Gifts for the Gods. Animal Mummies Revealed. As the title suggests, the exhibit explored the cultural context and composition of animal mummies, the latter through CT scans. Such technology has enabled museums to see what was inside the wrappings without damaging the actual item. In the Victorian period, when mummies (both human and animal) were first removed from their original contexts and placed in museums throughout the world, they would typically be unwrapped. The legacy of this practice can be seen in museums globally, especially in regard to the display of the remains of Kemite people.

Presenting the past

Any museum curator will tell you how difficult it is to balance the number of objects on display with the information that is presenting about them. Ultimately you are often left with a choice: do you display more objects or give people more information? Some museums have what are called open access displays. This is where all objects are accessible to the public in display cases but there are no explanations, dates or reference numbers accompanying them. I personally really like this type of display because you can see everything. However, such displays can cause frustration, especially if you want to know what something is or where it was excavated because you often can’t even find the registration number in order to write to the museum to ask them.

john_garstang_beni_hassan — Detail of an information panel at the special exhibition Gifts for the Gods, Manchester Museum

In the Gifts for the Gods exhibition, however, there was plenty of room for information provision. A large information panel entitled British Archaeologists in Egypt included an archive photograph of the Egyptologist John Garstang sitting in front of a union flag (above). Egypt was, of course, occupied by British forces between 1882 and 1952; and although the country retained its autonomy as part of the Ottoman Empire until 1914, British archaeologists and Egyptologists often raised their national flag at excavation sites. The text accompanying the photographs reads:

John Garstang’s workroom inside a rock-cut tomb at Beni Hasan, showing him seated to the right, 1902-4

I was disappointed that the opportunity was not taken to comment further on the colonial nature of this photograph or indeed the history of Egyptology. For visitors, such images have the potential to reinforce and accept Britain’s colonial past rather than to question and consider the consequences.

Addressing Britain’s colonial past

phantoms_of_the_congo_river_exhibit — The phantoms of Congo River. Photographs by Nyaba Ouedraogo, Manchester Museum, April 2016

Upstairs in the the Manchester Museum was another exhibition entitled The phantoms of Congo River. Photographs by Nyaba Ouedraogo. Here, a label that accompanies material culture from the Congo River includes the following text:

These objects were collected from places and people along the Congo River from the late 19th century. Such collections are the legacy of European commercial and colonial interests in this part of Africa, the same interests that drive Charles Marlow in the novella Heart of Darkness.

These objects were also collected during a similar time period to those in the exhibition on Kemet. Why then is there such a discrepancy in the way in which this practice is presented in two exhibitions in the same institution? Is it not timely and appropriate for Egyptologists to adopt a more critical approach to the history of their subject? I would suggest very strongly that it is.

Idealised and Romantic (and Racist?)

edwin_longsden _long_the_gods_and_their_makers — The Gods and their Makers by Edwin Longsden Long. Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, Burnely

The painting above was used in the exhibition to illustrate a woman carving a statue of a cat. I was struck immediately by the appearance of the ‘Egyptians’ in the work, identified by the artefacts that they hold and who are clearly of European descent. The only African person to be represented in the painting is holding a cat, that is the model for the sculptor.The panel accompanying the painting read:

European paintings and literature of the 1800s portray an idealised, romantic version of ancient Egypt, inspired by impressive temple ruins. The vast numbers of animal mummies buried in catacombs were well know to travellers. This led to the mistaken belief, based on Western ideas about animals as pets, that the ancient Egyptians worshipped animals themselves rather than the gods they represented. The reality for many animals prepared as mummies was very different.

I am not suggesting that museums should not show such works, but they need to be presented through a critical lens, and the blatant racist ideologies that accompany such images need to be deconstructed. Otherwise there is a danger that visitors leave the space with a confirmation that this was a reality. By describing such works as ‘idealised’, ‘romantic’ museums are failing to address a colonial and racist past.

Curating Kemet: 5 things that museums could do

Curating Kemet

There are a number of very simple approaches that museums could utilise in order to reaffirm the African origins of Ancient Egypt. And if you find yourself in a position to impart knowledge to others and are tired of waiting for this to be be implemented in your local museum, you can, of course, quite easily do this yourself.

1. What’s in a name?

A simple technique that I used when writing the information for a virtual gallery was to refer to anything that dated before the Ptolemaic Period (332 BCE) as ‘Kemet’ rather than ‘Egypt’. Αίγυπτος/Aegyptus were the names used by the Ancient Greek and Roman writers for Kemet. By continuing to use it, we are effectively still looking at the culture through a European lens. By abandoning this name, it is also possible to remove many of the Eurocentric interpretations that have been place upon this ancient African culture. It encourages people to look at the culture from a fresh perspective.

curating_kemet_british_museum_Senusret_statue — Statue of Senusret Kakaure. The British Museum, London

Many of the names that we use for rulers of Kemet are Hellenised (from the Greek versions). For example, Senusret Kakaure (left) a ruler of what we now refer to as the Twelfth Dynasty is sometimes referred to as Sesotris, which is the Greek version of his name. A similar issue arising the the use of Arabic names for ancient sites; Tell el-Amarna/Amarna, was named Akhet-Aten when it was occupied by the ancient people. By using the original African names we immediately resituate the ancient culture and its people.

A helpful site that lists all of the original names for the kings of Egypt and also gives the original names for sites is Digital Egypt.

2. Cultural context

curating_kemet_ramesses_2_Briitish_museum — Fragment of a colossal statue of Rameses Usermaatre-Setpenre in the Sculpture gallery at the British Museum

When an object is removed from its original site, the context is lost. It is therefore essential that museums seek to present objects within the appropriate cultural context. In university and national museums in the UK the Ancient Egyptian galleries are rarely connected to other African cultures. One exception to this is the Africa gallery at the Horniman Museum in south London. Here, a Kemite coffin is displayed alongside more recent ethnographic materials (see below) from a number of cultures from Africa and the African Diaspora.

curating_kemet_mami_wata-shrine_horniman_museum — Mami Wata Shrine in the Africa gallery at the Horniman Museum, London.

Kemite culture has much in common with other African cultures: from individual items such as hair combs, pottery, basketry, headrests; to concepts such as traditional religions, kingship and the role of women in societies. By referencing other African cultures that we know more about, curators can help visitors to obtain a better understanding of an ancient culture. In spite of this observation, you are more likely to find the Kemet collections next to the galleries that display Ancient Greece, Rome and the Ancient Near East than the African galleries. Adding ‘Africa’ to the name of a gallery that relates to ‘Ancient Egypt’ would be a good starting for many museums.

3. Illustrations

curatingkemet_Kerma_museum-display — Detail of a display of early grave goods at the Kerma Museum, Sudan

Illustrations and reconstructions are an important part of the presentation of cultures in museums, particularly when that culture is ancient. The photograph on the left shows a display in the Kerma Museum, Sudan and offers a powerful artistic interpretation to illustrate how the original owners of the grave goods would have worn these objects. The racialised identity of such reconstructions is important, because at an unconscious level we are likely to recall this when we think about the culture and its people in the future. Many people who have attended talks that I have given on Kemet have later said that they had simply never thought of Ancient Egypt as African. This is, in my opinion, largely the result of the media (for example films or documentaries that show reconstructions of the ancient people), museums, and the education system failing to differentiate between the ancient and more recent cultures in Egypt.

4. Historical timeline

Which brings me onto the fourth point: looking at this region’s historical timeline and acknowledging the changes in cultures and populations that have occurred over the past ten thousand years. I have summarised the key periods in a previous post under the heading From Kemet to Egypt to Misr. By recognising external cultural interactions and internal transitions, it is possible to obtain a better understanding of Kemet’s importance as an ancient indigenous African culture. Historical timelines also demonstrate the importance of this region and its people in the development of the Coptic church, and so Christianity more widely.

5. Connecting with Kush

curating_kemet_painting_Sobekhotep_tomb — Detail from the wall paintings from the Tomb of Sobekhotep. Around 1400 BCE. Gallery 65 The British Museum

In two recent posts I have observed that museums often differentiate between the people and cultures of Kemet and Kush. The result of this practice is that any representation from Kemet that is seen to represent an indigenous African person will be labelled as ‘Nubian‘. This practice continues to be standard, in spite of the fact that the majority of museums acknowledge the similarities between these two ancient cultures.