Ancients’ world ajar
A new gallery at Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum is home to a host of intriguing Egyptian artefacts. Phil Penfold takes a step back in time.
Pictures by Simon Hulme.
because only someone with money could have departed in a style like this.”
The ancient Egyptians sought to keep their names living on for posterity. “This was the way to give everyone an eternal life, that an afterworld looked after you. If they could put a name on something that was very personal, they did. It’s strange, perhaps, that we all know the names and ranks of our own medieval kings and queens and other notables, but everyone else went, largely, unremarked – until the development of graveyards and cemeteries with carved stone memorials. In Egypt, if it was at all possible, every detail was there to commemorate and identify the person who had died,” says Martha.
“Our lady of Thebes is accompanied by another mummy, but this time she’s just 14 years old, and she’s called Djedma’atiuesank. They are unrelated, and they are also very different for we don’t know how this teenager died – she was very young, even in a society where very few lived beyond the age of 35 or 40. There are no signs of disease, so she is yet another mystery.”
The new gallery not only tells us a lot about
Egypt and its history and societal structures, but also about the people of Sheffield who created their collections. People like Reginald Gatty, a clergyman from the city, whose interest was focused on the flint tools that the Egyptians used to sharpen and hone everyday objects. He was a vicar at Bradfield and then also at Hooton Roberts.
Martha is keen to point out that there are plenty of things for youngsters to do and engage with in the new gallery. “Wherever you go, the Egyptian section in every museum is always one of the most popular,” she says. “Here was the chance to enhance our own. Not everyone will want to read each label, or look at everything, but we really hope that there is something for all to enjoy, and to engage with.”
The thrill for Martha is giving visitors an insight into the distant past. They may go away having found out that Queen Nefertiti’s husband imposed a whole new system of belief on his people, demanding that they forsook their old gods, and worshipped the new ones he personally selected. They may be fascinated to find out that, incredibly, there were over 2,000 gods that our Egyptian ancestors could worship – and that’s not even counting the ones that were very personal to individual homes and communities.
Or they might just wonder at the intricacy of the detail in some of the smallest amulets. “My own favourite? It has to be a small white object, with a slightly raised representation of the human ear,” says Martha. It’s a ‘listening plaque’, very personal, and dedicated to the cult of Ptah. The owner could whisper into it, asking for prayers to be answered. How many secrets has it heard? How many devout requests were answered?
“That’s the great thing about the new gallery – it is so intensely personal. It links us all, over the centuries. It’s about how they all lived then, and what connects us, on the constant thread of life to today”.
For more details go to www. sheffieldgalleries.org.uk Admission to all Sheffield Museums and Galleries is free, donations are welcomed.