The recently opened exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in Pennsylvania, United States of America, permits visitors to explore artifacts from ancient Egypt.
“The Stories We Keep: Conserving Objects from Ancient Egypt” promises to be interesting to those who enjoy “getting into the weeds” of historic preservation and those who are simply curious.
The exhibition enables visitors to see the artifacts maintained for over a century while discovering how they are being maintained for future generations.
“The Stories We Keep” flings open the curtain on behind-the-scenes conservation work while permitting the public to ask questions, according to Herald Standard.
“Pittsburghers are very curious people,” said Sara Crawford, the director of exhibition and design, adding that the museum decided to respond to the public’s curiosity by allowing them to observe preservation work up close and personally. “We recognized that we would get questions anytime we were working in the galleries, so this time, we’re going to allow the public to pose questions to staff members directly.”
Crawford hopes that the exhibit will also pique the curiosity of younger students who have yet to consider a career in science at a museum.
“When I was young, I didn’t realize you could work in a museum, so it wasn’t a primary goal of mine. We hope that interacting with the staff will spark curiosity,” Crawford said.
The exhibit also marks the return of the artifacts to public view after the museum closed the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt in 2023 for conservation.
“Our long-term goal is to open a new Egypt Hall eventually,” she said.
Dr. Lisa Haney, assistant curator and Egyptologist, said, “The exhibit is focused on teaching people what conservation science is and letting them in on all the different behind-the-scenes practices and research that is involved to make such exhibits possible.”
Approximately 80 artifacts will be part of the exhibit, including a 4,000-year-old boat which hails from the Egyptian village of Dahshur and is one of only four in the world.
“The life-size boat was excavated at the Dahshur funerary complex of Senwosret III,” said Haney, referencing an Egyptian pharaoh and adding that it’s likely that a number of royal women were buried at the complex.
“It’s likely that the boat would have been used in the funerals of those women,” she said, explaining that in ancient Egypt most of the cemeteries were located on the West Bank of the Nile River, and this is how they were ferried across for burial.
CMNH recruited Dr. Mostafa Sherif, an expert on ancient wood restoration, to treat the boat. “The public can view him working on and preserving each plank of the boat,” said Haney. Museum conservators will hold daily demonstrations and answer visitor questions about the objects and conservation techniques. “They will learn about how many things the museum has to consider to display objects – things like humidity and temperature, for instance,” Haney said.
The public will also learn about how the museum recreated the world’s first human-made pigment called Egyptian Blue.
“Travis Olds, assistant curator of minerals at CMNH, tested out different ratios of ingredients with a modern kiln. He took samples of the pigments from objects in our care to study the mineral composition and learn which raw materials we needed to recreate the pigment,” said Crawford, adding that Olds worked with a team from Washington State University. “Students there used their glass-making furnaces to test out the mixtures of ingredients and firing temperatures and time and then compared the color with ancient examples. This is just one example of new and innovative research that people will also encounter at the exhibit.”
Interactive activities are also part of the exhibit, like reassembling replicas of ancient objects created with 3-D scanners.
“There is an entire department of educators to assist with fun, hands-on activities,” said Crawford, adding that the CMNH is actively attempting to answer the call by the public to create more immersive experiences.
According to staff at CMNH, the exhibit was created to tell a larger story about nature and culture.
