A new Penn Museum exhibition showcases 200 artifacts from its vast Egyptian collection, as well as their conservation, including a 4,000-year-old model of a rowing boat featuring 16 figures.
from Penn Today
While parts of the Egypt Gallery are closed for renovation, the Penn Museum is opening a new exhibition to display artifacts from its vast Egyptian collection, and to highlight the importance of conservation and storage practices.
“Ancient Egypt: From Discovery to Display” includes more than 200 objects, some on view for the first time, in a 6,000-square-foot exhibition in three rooms on the third floor. An innovative “visible storage” section—the only Philadelphia museum to have one—provides a showcase as the artifacts go through conservation in the adjacent Artifact Lab.
“You very rarely get to see an exhibition as it unfolds,” said Julian Siggers, Museum director, at a preview before the public opening on Saturday, Feb. 23.
“We wanted visitors to share in the journey from excavation to exhibition, to experience not only the wonders of ancient Egypt,” he said, “but also to share in the history of how these incredible objects came to Museum in the first place, and the skill and expertise involved in the efforts to preserve them.”
The Egyptian collection includes more than 50,000 objects from ancient Egypt, most of them found by Penn archaeologists.