Egypt

Above:  because I have been ill this weekend I was not able to go to the seminar yesterday organised by the Egypt Exploration Society.  The seminar was about the excavations at Naukratis in the Nile delta.  Naukritis is important as it was a centre of Greek culture and influence in Egypt (supposedly this influence goes back to pre-Minoan times).

Above:  the Review Show on BBC 2 on Friday looked at the refurbished Egyptian galleries at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.  One of the panellists, Sarfraz Manzoor, told us in all seriousness that the new galleries showed the influence ancient Egypt had on surrounding civilizations.  This sounded suspiciously as if he was advancing the discredited "Black Athena" theory (described by Professor Lefkowitz as incompetent). 

Above:  a few weeks ago I went round the Petrie Museum of Egyptology at University College London.  They currently have an exhibition of Flinders Petrie's work analyzing foreign influences in ancient Egypt.  Far from being some kind of "pure" well-spring of civilisation, it appears that ancient Egyptian society was a beneficiary of multiculturalism.

Above:  sculptured heads of different ethnic groups.  One of the things I love about the Petrie Museum is the way everything is crammed into a few small rooms so that you are intimately pushed up against this ancient culture.  Also the labels are either typed (on a real typewriter) or handwritten, adding to the "authentic" experience.

Above:  the famous "Hebrew head" is tiny, and you almost stumble across it.  In any other museum it would be given a room to itself, with acres of explanatory blurb and security guards warning you not to touch the cabinet.  Not sure how long the Petrie Museum is going to survive without a "makeover" - you should go and see it while it is still untouched.

Above:  the Greco-Romano mummy portraits discovered by Petrie were an influence on the painter Alma-Tadema.  You can see similar portraits at the British Museum.  They are important because not a great deal of ancient Greek painting survives (these are clearly examples of Greek culture, whatever Sarfraz Manzoor might tell you).

Above:  "identity politics" has blighted archaeological research in recent decades.  Bonnie Greer (who is a trustee of the British Museum and ought to know better than to make political statements) has publicly and provocatively told us that there are no indigenous inhabitants of the British Isles.  What the Petrie exhibition demonstrates is that there are no indigenous people anywhere if Ms Greer's strictly pedantic interpretation is to be applied.