The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, England, is run by the Institute of Archaeology, which is part of University College, London. The museum contains over 80,000 historical items and ranks amongst one of the worlds leading collections of Egyptian ancient historical items.^[1] It only ranks behind the collections of the Cairo Museum, The British Museum and the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin in number of items.

Visiting the museum

The Museum is located in Malet Place, near the UCL science library and Gower Street.^[2] There is a small gift shop. Some parts of the collection are not lit (for preservation reasons) and torches are supplied to see inside the cases. The museum is open all week, except Sundays and Mondays, and admission is free.^[3] The museum itself is split into three galleries. The third and last is accessed via and along a stairwell. The second gallery (housed above the old stables) contains the museums small artifcats and clothing collections, as well as tablets of writing and mummy cases. The first gallery is at the entrance to the museum, near the shop and contains mainly pottery.

History

The museum was established as a teaching resource for the Department of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College at the same time as the department was established in 1892. The initial collection was donated by the writer Amelia Edwards. The first Edwards Professor, William Flinders Petrie conducted many important excavations, and in 1913 he sold his collections of Egyptian antiquities to University College, transforming the museum into one of the leading collections outside Egypt. Petrie excavated dozens of major sites in the course of his career, including the Roman Period cemeteries at Hawara, famous for the beautiful mummy portraits in classical Roman style;Amarna, the city of king Akhenaten, sometimes called the first king to believe in one God; and the first true pyramid, at Meydum, where he uncovered some of the earliest evidence for mummification.

The collection and library were arranged in galleries within the university and a guidebook published in 1915. Most of the visitors were students and academics; it was not then open to the general public. Petrie retired from UCL in 1933, though his successors continued to add to the collections, excavating in other parts of Egypt and the Sudan. During the Second World War (1939-1945) the collection was packed up and moved out of London for safekeeping. In the early 1950s it was moved into an old stables building, where it remains adjacent to the science library of UCL.

Collections

The collection is full of 'firsts': One of the earliest pieces of linen from Egypt (about 5000 BC); two lions from the temple of Min at Koptos, from the first group of monumental sculpture (about 3000 BC); a fragment from the first kinglist or calendar (about 2900 BC); the earliest example of metal from Egypt, the first worked iron beads, the earliest example of glazing, the earliest 'cylinder seal' in Egypt (about 3500 BC); the oldest wills on papyrus paper, the oldest gynaecological papyrus; the only veterinary papyrus from ancient Egypt, and the largest architectural drawing, showing a shrine (about 1300 BC).^[4][5]

Costume is another strength of the collection. In addition to the 'oldest dress' there is a unique beadnet dress of a dancer from the Pyramid Age (about 2400 BC), two long sleeved robes of the same date, a suit of armour from the palace of Memphis, as well as socks and sandals from the Roman period. The collection contains works of art from Akhenaten’s city at Amarna: colourful tiles, carvings and frescoes, and from many other important Egyptian and Nubian settlements and burial sites. The museum houses the world’s largest collection of Roman period mummy portraits (first to second centuries AD).

The new building

University College is currently constructing a new building which will house the Petrie Museum and also serve as a public entrance from Gordon Street to the college as a whole. This building, which will be called the Panopticon, will also have space for temporary exhibitions, a café, lecture facilities, a reading room and a display area for the University of London's collection of rare books and manuscripts. Three floors will be devoted to the Petrie Museum, and for the first time the entire collection will be on display or in visible storage. It is due to be finished in 2010, with the move happening in 2009.^[6]

References

See also

•  • [ e] University College London

University History of University College London List of UCL alumni The UCL Bloomsbury UCL Main Building UCL Provost Filming at UCL Departments and Buildings The Bartlett Slavonic and East European Studies Bentham House The Panopticon Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology Institute of Archaeology Slade School of Fine Art Jill Dando Institute University College London Law Faculty Research and Hospitals University College Hospital UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience UCL Biomedica Royal Free and University College Medical School UCL Union University College London Union The Cheese Grater Pi Magazine Rare FM

• Museum Mile, London

External links

• Official website

•  • [ e] Museums with major collections of Egyptian antiquities

> Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt : 120,000 objects http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg/about_overview.html British Museum, London, UK : 110,000 objects http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/aes/galleries/understand3.html gyptisches Museum, Neues Museum, Berlin, Germany : 80,000 objects http://www.smb.spk-berlin.de/smb/sammlungen/details.php?lang=en&objID=2&p=13 Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London, UK : 80,000 objects http://www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/index2.html Muse du Louvre, Paris, France 50,000 objects [7] University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Pennsylvania, USA 42,000 objects [8] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA 40,000 objects [9] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA 36,000 objects [10] Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy 32,500 objects [11] Oriental Institute, Chicago, USA 30,000 objects [12] The British Museum - Excludes the 6 million objects from the Wendorf Collection of Egyptian and Sudanese Prehistory, donated to the museum in 2001 - gyptisches Museum; misleading collection, website source quotes 80,000 objects, published book quotes 100,000 objects ([13]]) n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only qualitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.

•  • [ e] Museums and galleries in London

Apsley House Barbican Art Gallery British Museum Burgh House Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms Percival David Foundation Design Museum Dulwich Picture Gallery Estorick Collection Foundling Museum Freud Museum Geffrye Museum Guildhall Art Gallery Handel House Museum Hayward Gallery HMS Belfast Hogarth's House Horniman Museum Imperial War Museum Institute of Contemporary Arts London Transport Museum Museum in Docklands Museum of London National Gallery National Maritime Museum National Portrait Gallery Natural History Museum Petrie Museum Queen's Gallery Royal Academy of Arts Royal Collection Saatchi Gallery Science Museum Serpentine Gallery Sir John Soane's Museum Somerset House – Courtauld Gallery, Gilbert Collection, Hermitage Rooms Sutton House Tate Britain Tate Modern Victoria and Albert Museum V&A Museum of Childhood Wallace Collection Whitechapel Art Gallery