December 1, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode, we look at how the Museum got its Egypt collection and focus on a fascinating story of an Egyptian woman with a long-term case of mistaken identity. We learn about the three main ways that museums like ours acquired Egyptian taonga: through purchases, subscriptions and donations, and what it was like for New Zealand’s soldiers to be stationed in Egypt during both World Wars.
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Collecting Egypt
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Steph StrockThis podcast is brought to you by Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum,
Voice actorMan perishes, his corpse turns to dust, all his relatives pass away, but writings make him remembered in the mouth of the reader.
Steph StrockThe woman lying in the wooden coffin at the back of our Ancient Worlds gallery has come a long way to rest in this quiet, dimly lit corner of Auckland Museum. Long after her life, death, mummification and burial in Ancient Egypt, her remains arrived here in the 1880s bound for Canterbury Museum. She was ‘purchased’ along with some other items for five pounds. That's just over $1,000 in today's money. Then in the fifties, Auckland Museum acquired her, where she was placed on display having hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of visitors since then. Removed from her ancestors and whenua and transported across the world to somewhere she probably couldn't have even known existed. She lost something really important along the way. Her name.
Kia ora, I'm Steph Strock, your host for this episode of The Amp, the podcast from Auckland Museum, that amplifies the incredible stories from our collections, our mahi and our place in the Pacific.
In this episode, we're looking at how the museum got its Egypt collection, and we'll be taking a deep dive into the fascinating story of an Egyptian woman with a long-term case of mistaken identity. Ancient Egypt is fascinating. Thousands of years after the fall of the empires that built the pyramids, wrote in hieroglyphics, mummified their dead, we’re still enthralled by their way of life and death, and the mysteries they've left behind. Our recent exhibition Egypt (00:05):
In the Time of Pharaohs was one of our most popular exhibitions of all time, with over 100,000 people rushing to see it.
Steph StrockDeath was a huge part of life in Ancient Egypt.
Josh EmmittIt was the continuation of life, would be a better way to put it.
Steph StrockThat's Dr Josh Emmitt, the Museum's Curator of Archaeology.
Josh EmmittSo previously in the Old Kingdom, the afterlife was really just for the Pharaoh and the rich, whereas it was kind of really just the Pharaoh, but it was becoming more for the rich as you go on, and it became for everyone. That's why we get things like the Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts, which were more accessible versions of these rituals that were previously reserved only for kind of, the most top of the top. So the pyramids, the literal representation of God on Earth. But the afterlife was a, it was basically a continuation of life. People loved life, and they wanted it to continue. So, you know, while some people have a midlife crisis and buy a sports car, people would start planning for their death. They would start planning for the continuation of their body and their soul, and order a coffin or sarcophagus to be made. They'd start a tomb construction, if they were of the wealthy, just so that they knew that when they died, their body would be looked after and they would continue living.
Steph StrockYour physical time on Earth was the opportunity to get ready for the afterlife and to make sure your voyage and arrival there was a breeze. Eventually, a whole industry had developed around death, making sure you were all set for that next step, having prepared everything you wanted to take with you, including yourself in mummy form.
Josh EmmittMummification occurred because people, they wanted the body to be intact, and that was a way to keep it intact. We get naturally mummified bodies just from the heat and dryness. So probably could have been based on some kind of natural observation over time, but in the ancient Egyptian afterlife, your body needed to be intact to be in the afterlife. If you didn't have a body, you didn't necessarily have an afterlife. So having that ability to keep the body intact was a desirable thing, because then you live forever. So it was, it was a, yeah, it's obviously a sign of respect, but it's also part of the religion as well.
Steph StrockAnd it wasn't just people who were mummified…
Josh EmmittSo different animals would get mummified for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's companions or guardians. So cats, especially, would be protectors of the soul during the afterlife. And so we've actually found what you would call factories in Egypt, of cats being mummified. And you would, someone dies, you'd go buy a mummified cat. And what some studies have found that a lot of the mummified cats don't actually have cats in them. So it's, we're not sure whether people were aware of that or not, and whether it was symbolic enough to have a cat and it would become a cat in the afterlife, or whether people were being perhaps swindled. But that would be one reason. The other one is, some people had a lot of animals as offerings. So there's a crocodile God, and they would mummify the crocodile as an offering to become that for the god, there's a lot of different reasons why you would, they go beyond grave goods in many ways, but there are always, you know every animal, every common animal in Egypt usually had an associated God. So they can be offerings towards them.
Steph StrockIn our Te Onemata Ancient Worlds gallery there's a mummified crocodile, an offering to the crocodile God, Sobek, who was associated with power, fertility and military prowess, but also offered protection from the dangers of the Nile. Not just a matter of spiritual safety, there was also a very human, wishless kind of vibe at play. In addition to mummifying their dead and companion pets, it was believed that whatever you placed in your tomb would also become real in the afterlife.
Josh EmmittSo if you had a model of a bakery, which we find, it would mean that you've got a bakery with people working in it in the afterlife. If you've got these little Shabti figures, little servants or guards, they would, in theory, become real to help you in the afterlife. So the one thing around the cats is that, from our modern standpoint, it's like, oh, they're swindling people, you know, but perhaps it was cheaper to buy a mummified cat that wasn't really a cat, but the outside form could have been seen to become a real cat in the afterlife. So there is that other angle to look at it from.
Steph StrockThe tombs would also feature incredible paintings which depicted what the dead wanted to enjoy in the afterlife.
Josh EmmittI mean, people just wanted to be able to eat and they wanted to be able to live. So we see a lot of tomb paintings which have scenes of the Nile and daily life, and we often see some people saying, I would like 1000 loaves of bread, but it's just meant to be many enough forever kind of thing, as opposed to a literal number. And, you know, we see people with animals painted. They want the landscape. They want people. They want animals to be around. And they, you know, they want their servants. But there's a lot of yeah, people would just have models for what they could get, but then their paintings would be much grander, and they would have basically everything of daily life that you could imagine.
Steph StrockThese days, for the most part, we're focused on how we present ourselves to the world while we're alive, how we style our clothes, our careers, our homes, our hair. But for the Ancient Egyptians, the journey to the afterlife was something to take very seriously. From incantations to well wishes, the things you prepared to take with you in death were a reflection of who you were or wanted to be in life, which might look a little different depending on how wealthy you were.
Josh EmmittSo on the outside is usually a number of scenes from just religious iconography depicting various gods or the weighing of the heart for the judgment of the soul and things like that. When there is writing, there'll usually be some kind of standard text from the coffin texts or the Book of the Dead, just to protect this body, to protect the soul, you know, may the heart way lighter than a feather, kind of thing, to prove that you were a good person, the there would be space, mostly in our case with Souser, there's on the inside, and that's where you'd have maybe the name of the deceased, maybe some family members, where they were from, maybe what they did, sometimes, what food offerings they would like in the afterlife to feed them. So there's all those kinds of stock standard, and it really depends how wealthy you were. If you had a custom-made sarcophagus or coffin, it could have some anecdotes about you. It might even be more depicted to look like you. It would fit very well, as in be the right size, whereas if it was just a more ‘commoners’ kind of one, you would get the right size coffin, more or less. And when I say commoner, I'm still talking upper class, but you would get a they would have a standard set of incantations on them, and then you would basically just fill in the gaps.
Steph StrockThe Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts are two ways we know a lot about how the Ancient Egyptians saw death and the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was a collection of funerary texts - spells that were written on papyrus and placed in tombs. Likewise, the Coffin Texts were painted onto the objects themselves in the tomb and were designed to help the deceased navigate the afterlife.
Josh EmmittI believe the Coffin Texts come first, and they're just a series of incantations and rituals. And I guess you could say prayers that would be written on coffins or sarcophagi or on papyrus or on tomb walls, and they would really just be all kinds of things. I wish my body to remain intact. I wish to have plentiful food. I don't want my soul to be eaten by this monster, right? Just every, every base covering thing you could imagine. The other thing, I should say is quite cool, is in tombs, is that we sometimes get false heads. So people would have replacement body parts. So if their body didn't survive, they would have replacements.
Steph StrockKeeping your body intact, original or replacement, was a big deal. Beneath the pyramids, in tombs or in the graves of the poor, if you could afford it, you would do your best to arrive in the afterlife in one piece. So how did a mummy carefully preserved some two and a half thousand years ago, traverse the ocean to Aotearoa. When I first started at the museum, I got to spend a day with the visitor hosts. They're the people who can give you a really good lowdown on all the exhibits. The idea was to help me better understand what our visitors experience when they come to the museum, and what they wanted to know. I was actually paired with another Steph (shout outs!), and she said something that actually really stuck with me. Every shift, she would start her day by paying our mummy a visit and wishing her a good morning. It's sometimes easy to forget that behind the glass there's actually a person who was born, lived and died. Auckland Museum acquired the mummy in 1957 from Canterbury Museum, exchanging her for a coconut grater, a headrest and a drum. She was actually our second mummy, the first being the mummy of a young boy who isn't currently on display.
Josh EmmittWhat we now see as an inappropriate view of humans as objects that could be traded…But at that time, that's what mummified human remains, or sometimes just human remains, were seen as…they were commodities that could be bought, sold and traded. So we don't see that as right today, but back then, it was seen as acceptable.
Steph StrockThankfully, that practice has long since stopped.
Louise FureyWell, museums did a lot of things in the past that we don't do anymore. Practices and exchanges in the past were done because a museum didn't have certain types of objects that they wanted, and another museum did. So they would, they would do an exchange, and it happened between New Zealand and overseas museums as well, which is how we actually acquired one of the mummies, but also internally within New Zealand, because museums were all about the objects that they had and putting objects on display, and whereas now, museology is a lot more about using lesser objects, but telling the story.
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Steph StrockBefore retiring, Dr Louise Furey was the Museum's Archeology Curator, before Josh and she became heavily involved in solving the case of our mommy's mistaken identity, sort of by accident…
Louise FureyYes, coincidentally, I was researching another topic in Te Papa and a previous curator there had assembled these quite extensive books of information about their collections. I wasn't even looking at the Egyptian collection material. I was looking at some Māori ornaments, and as I was flicking through this book, which had letters as well as acquisition card information and newspaper clippings. I found this newspaper clipping that was there, related to Auckland Museum, dated 1970 and it was about the reading of the tapes on the mummy called Ta-Sedgemet. And it was sort of like, “Aha, what's going on here?” And it was quite clear that, in reading this article, that somewhere along the line, the names of the mummies had been switched. And so I came back to Auckland and started pursuing that a little bit in a little bit more detail.
Steph StrockSo Louise set about trying to restore the mummy’s correct name by having the hieroglyphics on her bandages and the interior of the coffin translated by egyptology experts. We know from her acquisition card that she was purchased by Julius von Haast, the then director of Canterbury Museum. He’d bought her from an Italian Egyptologist, along with several other artefacts in 1888, but when she came to Auckland Museum, hardly anything was known about her. In her time with us, we've gotten to know her a lot better. Several types of analyses have been performed over the years as more informative, nondestructive scientific techniques have been developed. In the early 70s, she was given a full body X-ray by the museum's ethnologist Mr. D R Simmons. This was widely reported at the time, with dozens of articles sharing the news that the museum's mummies were having X-rays to help solve the mysteries of their deaths.
Voice actorThe results show the bones of a mature woman aged between 18 and 35. Her abdomen was stuffed with spices and sweets, smelling ungents. A decaying reminder of ancient Egyptian civilization, the mummies represent the practices of bygone societies outside the museum in the Domain, the fresh greenness of the trees hastened the return to the present.
Steph StrockSome time later, between 1982 and 1994 a report was written about her by a local Egyptologist. It's around this time that she became mistakenly associated with the name Ta-Sedgemet. With this incorrect name, she was introduced to generations of interested visitors in her gallery at Auckland Museum. In the early 2000s, she was removed from display for a four-year conservation treatment.
Louise FureyShe came off display in the early 2000s. The coffin case was quite dusty, and being exposed to the open air, some of the paint was starting to flake off the exterior of it, so it was decided to do some extensive conservation work, it was also decided at that time to learn as much about her as the conservators and the curator could actually find out.
Steph StrockHer coffin was cleaned and the paint protected. Her bandages were stabilized and secured. At the same time, we sent off fragments of her linen wrappings and small pieces of Sycamore wood from her coffin to Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato - Waikato University, for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating is a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials that can be as old as up to 60,000 years. At this time, she was also given a full body CT scan at Mercy Ascot hospital, likely their oldest patient ever, by a very long way…
Louise FureyIt's also something quite unusual for an anatomist to actually interpret the CT scans of an ancient mummy. So there's, there's kind of a bit of a novelty value in that as well.
Steph StrockThe scan told us a lot about her. In life, she would have been about 156 centimetres tall, and seems to have had a healthy childhood with no telltale signs of illness at a young age. She lived a short life by today's standards, but one that was considered perfectly normal at the time.
Louise FureyThe anatomist reported that she was about 32-years-old, that she had very worn teeth from her diet, which probably contained a lot of abrasive material, and also that she had abscesses which were as a result of the worn down teeth. She must have lived in a great deal of pain. She also had inflamed sinuses, possibly related to the infection and in her teeth, and she had non Hodgkin's lymphoma, which probably killed her in the end. So his conclusion was that she was not a well woman.
Steph StrockWhile she was having the scan, the team had an opportunity to take images of the coffin, and these were posted online. Then in 2014, a French Egyptologist called Marion Claude saw these and got in touch to offer some additional information about the stylistic details of the coffin. It was then that we discovered that her name was not Ta-Sedgemet. So sometime over the last 100 years the details of our two mummies became intertwined. Ta-Sedgemet is actually the name of the mummified boy.
Louise FureySo the name, in the form of the hieroglyphics on the base and the interior of the lid was similar. They said her name was Souser-iret-binet, and that her mother, the lady of the house, was Aset-en-kheb. Her father's name is not recorded, and the inscriptions have a format. They invoke the protection of the gods and they introduce the name of the individual. So it's really a letter of introduction to the gods in the afterlife to look after this individual.
Steph StrockThis was a big moment. In Ancient Egypt, a person's name was inseparably connected to their personality or soul. It was an aspect of the “ka”, the essence of a person, which was transmitted from one generation to the next. Having your name be remembered through later generations was crucial to ensure eternal life.
Louise FureyWell, for all individuals, having a name is important for their identity, and sometimes in Ancient Egypt, the name also included a form of a god's name to ensure that the individual had protection. And that's why it's sometimes difficult to interpret these names, and which is probably why there are difficulties in actually finding a match for Souser’s name.
Steph StrockFor Egyptians in this period, your name was a thread connecting the realm of the living and the dead. It was so important that there are spells in the Coffin Texts and in the Book of the Dead aimed at preventing a person from forgetting their name after death. Once Louise and the international team of experts had uncovered the mistake, they got to work setting it right.
Louise FureyIt felt really good, actually. And it wasn't just me. I enlisted these specialists who put up with me asking these, these questions. I'm not an Egyptologist, I'm a Māori archaeologist, but I was the curator responsible for the collections, and also it was really important, out of respect, to ensure that she was referred to by her correct name. And so the label in Ancient Worlds was changed to reflect that, with a description of why the name had changed.
Steph StrockWe don't know exactly how this mistake happened, but it's likely it was just that, a mistake. Now both mummies have been reconnected with their names. Remember that ancient Egyptian text from the start of the episode? Man perishes. His corpse turns to dust. All his relatives pass away, but writings make him remembered in the mouth of the reader. Well, with her name no longer lost to the sands of time, we were able to reintroduce the woman lying in the Ancient Worlds gallery by her given name: Souser-iret-binet, whose mother was Aset-en-kheb. May she be remembered in the mouth of the reader.
We have about 2000 archaeological Egyptian taonga. So how did they make their way here? Well, through three main ways, purchases, donations and subscriptions. Yes, subscriptions. Long before we were pinged with monthly bills for Spotify Premium or Disney Plus, if you were rich enough, you could subscribe to a society that would go out and undertake archaeological digs. These subscriptions would ensure a trickle of objects found on their excavations, one of the most well known at the time was the Egypt Exploration Society, or the EES, which still exists today.
Josh EmmittSo that really began in the nineteenth century. So yeah, the Egypt Exploration Fund, then Society, was in the nineteenth century, and it was set up to help fund research and excavations in Egypt, and eventually it became more of what was common at the time, what you would loosely call a learned society where people would join with a common interest. And effectively, what it did for a number of years is they would fund excavations in Egypt, and in return they would get some of the finds. And then, being in a colonial context, they took whatever they wanted from Egypt, and they would get sent back to England, and then they would be distributed to subscribers.
Steph StrockAuckland Museum subscribed to this society from 1926 to 1935 over this period, we received numerous items from significant sites including Abydos and Amarna. Any regular Joe could sign up for a subscription, providing they had the cash.
Josh EmmittAuckland Museum for a number of years paid 10 pounds a year…
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Steph StrockToday, that would feel like over a grand winging its way out of your bank account.
Josh Emmitt…and we would get sent objects in return. And that went on for a number of years, and basically, just to fund the fieldwork in Egypt.
Steph StrockMany of the objects received are currently on display alongside Souser-iret-binet in Te Onemata Ancient Worlds gallery, including a number of bead necklaces, which were sent as part of the first shipment. Also from the Egypt Exploration Society, the Museum received three blue painted pots from the 1923 to 1924 excavation season at Amarna. According to archived distribution lists from the EES Auckland Museum should have only received one… score I guess? One of the most common ways we receive taonga is through donations, and many of our Egyptian items can be traced back to two of New Zealand's most significant stations in the First and Second World Wars. Soldiers in both World Wars who were stationed in Egypt turned home with artefacts, many of which were later donated to Auckland Museum. Egypt, often referred to more loosely as North Africa, was the first stop for most New Zealand service personnel on their way to the two World Wars. For many, it was a relatively short term stopover before going on to Britain and the continent. But for those who served in and around the Middle East, Egypt was an important administrative, medical, rest and recreational centre. So why Egypt? I spoke to the Museum's War History Curator, Gail Romano, to find out.
Gail RomanoIn the First World War, there was a strategic reason based on political geography, really. So the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1914, November 1914 and the New Zealand troops and the Australian troops were already on route at that stage, on transports. They went together, the main body of our force, and the main transport route was through the Suez Canal. Because, you know, that's a main communication and transport link for Britain, with its interests, and, you know, trading and colonial interests as well, particularly in India. So it was a major concern strategically when the Ottoman Empire entered the war, because that posed a direct threat on the Suez Canal and the access ways. So it was a fairly late decision to offload the New Zealand and Australia troops in Egypt instead of continuing through to Britain, where they would have gone. But added to that, actually, there was an overlay of overcrowding in the existing military camps in Britain that come, obviously entering winter, which wouldn't have been great for the troops, and there was a shortage of equipment as well. So for those reasons as well. It made some sense to stop them in Egypt. In the Second World War, those strategic reasons still existed, but slightly different. So the Suez Canal was still an important communication and transport link, but the major concern at that point was Italy joining the German forces, because Italy had colonial interests, or occupation interests in Libya, next door to Egypt, and also in some other areas in eastern Africa. And at that point, there was not only the concern for British interests in Egypt, but also for possible threats to the oil reserves in the Middle East and Britain had apparently offered to support or help Iran and Iraq if they became involved in the war. So you can see in both wars, there were some similarities there.
Steph StrockBoth Zeitoun, the initial large camp in the First World War, and Maadi camp in the Second World War were close to Cairo, and the capital offered lots to amaze, tempt and distract visitors from the other side of the world.
Gail RomanoOutside of what was thought of as their work day, because it was just, you know, that was your soldier’s job. They often had some free time in the evenings. Similar situation existed in the Second World War, and at that point, they were free to go and explore or spend time in the city, which they did, they became tourists. Many of them hadn't been overseas. This area, particularly, was one that was a little bit fabled. You know, there was a very strong sort of, I want to use the term romanticized, because in many ways, it was a romanticized idea about the Middle East, and so they were really keen to go and see all of these things they'd heard about. They took photos of themselves in front of the pyramids. They rode camels, they went to the bazaars, they shopped, they had as many experiences as they could, and in many ways, it depended too on how much spending money they had. There are letters home that talk about hawkers in the bazaar who are like small men, who are walking like small shops, because they've got so much material hanging off of so many things for sale, you know, that's actually just on their person. So the scenes and the smells and the excitement in that whole area must have been absolutely amazing.
Steph StrockOur service personnel bought mementos that captured something of the ‘exotic’ nature of where they were, and which were reasonably easy to send home or fit in their kit bags.
Gail RomanoThe bazaars were full of the sorts of things that still we tend to associate with what you can go and buy in the bazaars as they exist now, textiles, wooden items, tooled leather objects, Damascene items, metal that has been tooled, engraved and then inlaid with a gold and silver metal foil, and in the desert, of course, they also collected so pebbles, stones, and they collected experiences, and they collected photographs. So, a range of things, really, whatever they could buy and whatever they wanted to whatever they thought family back home might like as well, because a lot of what they purchased was gifted.
Steph StrockThe Mosky, the famed Cairo bazaar was a favorite destination, especially in the early days when the troops still had a bit of spare money.
Josh EmmittSome of it was authentic. Some was modern forgeries, but all of it soldiers would bring back, and sometimes they would give it to the Museum. They didn't want to have it anymore. It was a kind of a reminder for them they didn't want. In other cases, we still get, occasionally, people going through their grandparents or great grandparents’ effects and finding things, and they don't know what to do with them, so they bring them to us, and we'll, we'll take them from there.
Steph StrockRegardless of their authenticity, these items helped shape our understanding of what it was like for the soldiers during these wars. Some objects they picked up were certainly not forgeries, but were not always obtained by the most official means…One example of this is some beads from Heliopolis. They were unearthed when two soldiers requested some shovels from their quartermaster and started to dig at the site. They found some beads before being told a French archeology excavation was actually happening there, and were promptly moved on by a guard. Gail explained that there was also some animosity towards soldiers stationed in Egypt during the First World War.
Gail RomanoAnother phrase which has been associated with the First World War soldiers was ‘Massey's Tourists’. That really referred to, what was a sort of a feeling at the time, that the men in Egypt were just, you know, having a good time overseas.
Steph StrockBill Massey was our Prime Minister at the time, and as the New Zealand government had funded the troops’ voyage to North Africa (and given them the opportunity to sight-see…), this was a bit of a dig at the Kiwi troops.
Gail RomanoNot all those who put together Christmas parcels here were happy for their parcels to go to a serviceman who was stationed in Egypt. And there were some notes apparently put into some of the Christmas parcels that were packed, which says, I hope my parcel doesn't go to a serviceman in Egypt. And there was a letter that came home and said, I was unlucky enough to get this, this note. And I'm so sad that people think about it like this, because we work hard as not, not a good environment, and that was because they had, there was this perception that all the real work, all the danger was over on the Western Front. And so those who were stationed in North Africa in the top part there were having a bit of an easy time of it. So there might have been soldiers in name, but they weren't necessarily doing the job. And it's quite sort of sobering to think about that. You know that that was an attitude held by some people, not everybody, obviously, but held by some over here.
Steph StrockOf course, many of these soldiers went on to fight and die in the Gallipoli campaign, never to return to their homeland. For the soldiers who did return, those mementos took on other meanings inextricably linked to the experience of war, of trauma and of loss.
Josh EmmittFor our museum, it's really about a connection. For me, a big part of it is a connection to the soldiers. So it's the things they brought back, but also so the original reason for collecting, which was to have an association with Ancient Egypt, or with Egypt in itself, whereas the soldiers, some of the material they dropped off, they've got wartime stories associated with them. So that kind of becomes a part of the history here.
Gail RomanoBecause it's representative of the experience of those men overseas. So, you know, I've talked about the sorts of souvenir-type items that they perhaps brought home or sent home, but of course, the other material that we have quite a lot of, are pieces of military memorabilia that go with it. So you know, the badges, the uniform items, the miscellaneous bits and pieces, whether they're whistles or belts or so, that sort of material and some currency as well. That material represents the personal experience of that man in that particular situation. In the past, the museum collected differently, and we weren't alone in that. You know, museology was different then, and we tended to collect objects or/and collections just for their own sake. These days, we seek context as well. So an important part of anything that comes in now as we're keen to know something about that person, something about the personal experiences they actually had during active service, if the family is aware of that, you know, and in some instances, diaries and letters come in as part of it. So all of that augments the small collection, and that's its significance to us, not because, in of itself, it's historically important, but because the social experience that that man or woman has had.
Steph StrockThe other main way we acquired our collection is through purchases, which used to be totally commonplace for museums. Up until 1970 the Cairo Museum actually had a sales room where artefacts from excavations were sold along with duplicates of objects already on display. This was how Thomas Cheeseman, who was the Museum's first curator from 1874 to 1923, acquired many of the objects in our collection.
Josh EmmittSo it started off, really, that it was almost just kind of part of the general trend of what a museum has, trying to be encyclopedic, having material from all over the world. And there was this notion that, and I think it's in one of the correspondence from maybe not our museum, but I've seen it. Basically every museum needs a mummy, and that is the idea of having just that kind of, this is what a museum has, if they have a mummy and they have stuff from Ancient Egypt. And so that was kind of how it started. You know, where there was an interest in Egypt, because that's where soldiers were staying at that time. So they were staying in a place called Maadi, which is just south of Cairo, Southern Cairo. And it was more having material from Egypt back here in Aotearoa, so that people could feel a connection to where the soldiers served at the time.
Steph StrockWe have about two-thousand archeological items from Egypt gathered mostly from subscriptions, donations and purchases. But here and around the world, the tide has really shifted since they came to us. In the late twentieth century, there was a move to empower countries to have more agency over their taonga, which went all the way to the United Nations.
Josh EmmittSo UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation run obviously through the UN, and in 1976 they passed a resolution which was concerning the exchange of cultural property, and really it was meant to curb the black market of the antiquities trade, stop things being looted from other countries and put on to the private market. And really just kind of…a lot of countries were already stopping that. It was legal to do so, but there weren't really any teeth behind it, and there was definitely no international cooperation on it. So this was just a way to formalise that agreement. Egypt had been tightening down for quite a bit on sending material out of Egypt, but the Cairo Museum, until almost that until the 70s, actually had a shop where you could buy antiquities. So yeah, it was everything kind of stopped in 76 in that regard, where they weren't so openly traded. There, of course, is still a black market for antiquities, unfortunately. But this was really the start of, kind of trying to curb that in an international way.
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Steph StrockMuch of what was taken from Egypt was shipped out during colonial rule. When Egypt gained its independence in the 1970s the flow of taonga out of the country began to decline. The Egyptian Government now requires you to have a PhD to apply for a permit to undertake excavations, and anything you find stays in Egypt where they can decide what happens with it. Today, we're not actively pursuing items from Ancient Egypt.
Josh EmmittWe have enough to tell the story, and there's a lot of stories within our collection. So we can tell stories about how we obtained this object or that object, or more the collection practices history, bit of what we've talked about. And I think that's where the real value in the collection lies. Talking around about, you know, with Souser-iret-binet, about why we have her and on display, and really articulating that so that we have people when they come and they learn about what has happened, how we're going to try and put it right, or the work that we're doing, and what might happen in the future.
Steph StrockNow it's more about looking after what we do have, and preparing it for whatever the next chapter in its life looks like. In the case of Souser-iret-binet, we're still working to do right by her.
Josh EmmittWe get a lot of some people saying that, why is why is it? Why is she on display? Take her off display and say, well, actually, there's, you know, we're trying to do it respectfully, and we're also trying to make sure that we're making people think about the issue, as opposed to just literally taking her off display, out of sight, out of mind, as I know this is an issue around the world. We need to actually appreciate this as a human here, and this is the approach we're taking for now, and that probably in ten years, won't be the approach we're taking then, but for now, we can use her as an educational example of the past practice, the current issues and practice and where we're going.
Steph StrockFor now, Souser-iret-binet continues to rest in our Ancient Worlds gallery, but one day she may return to Egypt.
Josh EmmittIt's not as simple as just sending her back to Egypt. There's a lot of history that needs to be uncovered as to how we got her, where she came from, and also it has to be the right time. That's the first thing in repatriation, it has to be the right time for the recipient community and Egypt, they have to be ready to receive her back, and they also need to be ready for every other museum to send back their mummies. And there's at least three institutions in New Zealand with an Egyptian mummy, and that's just in our relatively small country. So it gives you the idea of, they're going to have a lot of work, and we don't want to overwhelm that system.
Steph StrockA huge new museum is currently under construction in Giza, about two kilometres away from the pyramids. The Grand Egyptian Museum will host over 100,000 artefacts from ancient Egypt and will be the world's largest archeological museum. It's our understanding that once opened, it will have the capacity to deal with repatriations. Until that call comes, Souser-iret-binet will be well cared for.
Josh EmmittWe try to be custodians. So it's looking after the time. Or the artefacts from elsewhere that we have as best we can, making sure that they're cared for, they're preserved, and starting discussions with the countries of origin. We're talking to the Egyptian community, we're talking to the embassy, and working through what we do with a lot of our taonga. And the Egyptian community, in our brief conversation so far, are actually very happy with our display of Egyptian, Ancient Egyptian material, and some of them feel that it creates a connection back home for them. And they can bring their kids to Auckland, and they can't necessarily go back to Egypt all the time, but they can bring them to the Museum and see at least some of their ancient Egyptian culture. And that's, that's quite cool. I think.
Steph StrockThat was ‘Collecting Egypt’. This episode was written and produced by me, Steph Strock and Laura Skerritt. Sound Design by Sara O'Brien. The executive producer was Teresa Cowie from Connect Content. Thanks to our guests, Dr Josh Emmitt, Dr Louise Furey and Gail Romano. Thanks also to Collection Manager Archaeology, Deidre Harrison for writing the original blog this episode is based on. Voice acting by Ian Proctor. For more information about our Egypt collection and to learn more about Souser-iret-binet’s journey, visit the links in our show notes. If you've enjoyed the podcast so far, please help others to find us by clicking follow, giving us a review or just spreading the word. We're going to be taking a bit of a break from publishing over the summer, but we'll be back with a new episode of The Amp in February.
Collecting Egypt
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Steph StrockThis podcast is brought to you by Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum,
Voice actorMan perishes, his corpse turns to dust, all his relatives pass away, but writings make him remembered in the mouth of the reader.
Steph StrockThe woman lying in the wooden coffin at the back of our Ancient Worlds gallery has come a long way to rest in this quiet, dimly lit corner of Auckland Museum. Long after her life, death, mummification and burial in Ancient Egypt, her remains arrived here in the 1880s bound for Canterbury Museum. She was ‘purchased’ along with some other items for five pounds. That's just over $1,000 in today's money. Then in the fifties, Auckland Museum acquired her, where she was placed on display having hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of visitors since then. Removed from her ancestors and whenua and transported across the world to somewhere she probably couldn't have even known existed. She lost something really important along the way. Her name.
Kia ora, I'm Steph Strock, your host for this episode of The Amp, the podcast from Auckland Museum, that amplifies the incredible stories from our collections, our mahi and our place in the Pacific.
In this episode, we're looking at how the museum got its Egypt collection, and we'll be taking a deep dive into the fascinating story of an Egyptian woman with a long-term case of mistaken identity. Ancient Egypt is fascinating. Thousands of years after the fall of the empires that built the pyramids, wrote in hieroglyphics, mummified their dead, we’re still enthralled by their way of life and death, and the mysteries they've left behind. Our recent exhibition Egypt (00:05):
In the Time of Pharaohs was one of our most popular exhibitions of all time, with over 100,000 people rushing to see it.
Steph StrockDeath was a huge part of life in Ancient Egypt.
Josh EmmittIt was the continuation of life, would be a better way to put it.
Steph StrockThat's Dr Josh Emmitt, the Museum's Curator of Archaeology.
Josh EmmittSo previously in the Old Kingdom, the afterlife was really just for the Pharaoh and the rich, whereas it was kind of really just the Pharaoh, but it was becoming more for the rich as you go on, and it became for everyone. That's why we get things like the Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts, which were more accessible versions of these rituals that were previously reserved only for kind of, the most top of the top. So the pyramids, the literal representation of God on Earth. But the afterlife was a, it was basically a continuation of life. People loved life, and they wanted it to continue. So, you know, while some people have a midlife crisis and buy a sports car, people would start planning for their death. They would start planning for the continuation of their body and their soul, and order a coffin or sarcophagus to be made. They'd start a tomb construction, if they were of the wealthy, just so that they knew that when they died, their body would be looked after and they would continue living.
Steph StrockYour physical time on Earth was the opportunity to get ready for the afterlife and to make sure your voyage and arrival there was a breeze. Eventually, a whole industry had developed around death, making sure you were all set for that next step, having prepared everything you wanted to take with you, including yourself in mummy form.
Josh EmmittMummification occurred because people, they wanted the body to be intact, and that was a way to keep it intact. We get naturally mummified bodies just from the heat and dryness. So probably could have been based on some kind of natural observation over time, but in the ancient Egyptian afterlife, your body needed to be intact to be in the afterlife. If you didn't have a body, you didn't necessarily have an afterlife. So having that ability to keep the body intact was a desirable thing, because then you live forever. So it was, it was a, yeah, it's obviously a sign of respect, but it's also part of the religion as well.
Steph StrockAnd it wasn't just people who were mummified…
Josh EmmittSo different animals would get mummified for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's companions or guardians. So cats, especially, would be protectors of the soul during the afterlife. And so we've actually found what you would call factories in Egypt, of cats being mummified. And you would, someone dies, you'd go buy a mummified cat. And what some studies have found that a lot of the mummified cats don't actually have cats in them. So it's, we're not sure whether people were aware of that or not, and whether it was symbolic enough to have a cat and it would become a cat in the afterlife, or whether people were being perhaps swindled. But that would be one reason. The other one is, some people had a lot of animals as offerings. So there's a crocodile God, and they would mummify the crocodile as an offering to become that for the god, there's a lot of different reasons why you would, they go beyond grave goods in many ways, but there are always, you know every animal, every common animal in Egypt usually had an associated God. So they can be offerings towards them.
Steph StrockIn our Te Onemata Ancient Worlds gallery there's a mummified crocodile, an offering to the crocodile God, Sobek, who was associated with power, fertility and military prowess, but also offered protection from the dangers of the Nile. Not just a matter of spiritual safety, there was also a very human, wishless kind of vibe at play. In addition to mummifying their dead and companion pets, it was believed that whatever you placed in your tomb would also become real in the afterlife.
Josh EmmittSo if you had a model of a bakery, which we find, it would mean that you've got a bakery with people working in it in the afterlife. If you've got these little Shabti figures, little servants or guards, they would, in theory, become real to help you in the afterlife. So the one thing around the cats is that, from our modern standpoint, it's like, oh, they're swindling people, you know, but perhaps it was cheaper to buy a mummified cat that wasn't really a cat, but the outside form could have been seen to become a real cat in the afterlife. So there is that other angle to look at it from.
Steph StrockThe tombs would also feature incredible paintings which depicted what the dead wanted to enjoy in the afterlife.
Josh EmmittI mean, people just wanted to be able to eat and they wanted to be able to live. So we see a lot of tomb paintings which have scenes of the Nile and daily life, and we often see some people saying, I would like 1000 loaves of bread, but it's just meant to be many enough forever kind of thing, as opposed to a literal number. And, you know, we see people with animals painted. They want the landscape. They want people. They want animals to be around. And they, you know, they want their servants. But there's a lot of yeah, people would just have models for what they could get, but then their paintings would be much grander, and they would have basically everything of daily life that you could imagine.
Steph StrockThese days, for the most part, we're focused on how we present ourselves to the world while we're alive, how we style our clothes, our careers, our homes, our hair. But for the Ancient Egyptians, the journey to the afterlife was something to take very seriously. From incantations to well wishes, the things you prepared to take with you in death were a reflection of who you were or wanted to be in life, which might look a little different depending on how wealthy you were.
Josh EmmittSo on the outside is usually a number of scenes from just religious iconography depicting various gods or the weighing of the heart for the judgment of the soul and things like that. When there is writing, there'll usually be some kind of standard text from the coffin texts or the Book of the Dead, just to protect this body, to protect the soul, you know, may the heart way lighter than a feather, kind of thing, to prove that you were a good person, the there would be space, mostly in our case with Souser, there's on the inside, and that's where you'd have maybe the name of the deceased, maybe some family members, where they were from, maybe what they did, sometimes, what food offerings they would like in the afterlife to feed them. So there's all those kinds of stock standard, and it really depends how wealthy you were. If you had a custom-made sarcophagus or coffin, it could have some anecdotes about you. It might even be more depicted to look like you. It would fit very well, as in be the right size, whereas if it was just a more ‘commoners’ kind of one, you would get the right size coffin, more or less. And when I say commoner, I'm still talking upper class, but you would get a they would have a standard set of incantations on them, and then you would basically just fill in the gaps.
Steph StrockThe Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts are two ways we know a lot about how the Ancient Egyptians saw death and the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was a collection of funerary texts - spells that were written on papyrus and placed in tombs. Likewise, the Coffin Texts were painted onto the objects themselves in the tomb and were designed to help the deceased navigate the afterlife.
Josh EmmittI believe the Coffin Texts come first, and they're just a series of incantations and rituals. And I guess you could say prayers that would be written on coffins or sarcophagi or on papyrus or on tomb walls, and they would really just be all kinds of things. I wish my body to remain intact. I wish to have plentiful food. I don't want my soul to be eaten by this monster, right? Just every, every base covering thing you could imagine. The other thing, I should say is quite cool, is in tombs, is that we sometimes get false heads. So people would have replacement body parts. So if their body didn't survive, they would have replacements.
Steph StrockKeeping your body intact, original or replacement, was a big deal. Beneath the pyramids, in tombs or in the graves of the poor, if you could afford it, you would do your best to arrive in the afterlife in one piece. So how did a mummy carefully preserved some two and a half thousand years ago, traverse the ocean to Aotearoa. When I first started at the museum, I got to spend a day with the visitor hosts. They're the people who can give you a really good lowdown on all the exhibits. The idea was to help me better understand what our visitors experience when they come to the museum, and what they wanted to know. I was actually paired with another Steph (shout outs!), and she said something that actually really stuck with me. Every shift, she would start her day by paying our mummy a visit and wishing her a good morning. It's sometimes easy to forget that behind the glass there's actually a person who was born, lived and died. Auckland Museum acquired the mummy in 1957 from Canterbury Museum, exchanging her for a coconut grater, a headrest and a drum. She was actually our second mummy, the first being the mummy of a young boy who isn't currently on display.
Josh EmmittWhat we now see as an inappropriate view of humans as objects that could be traded…But at that time, that's what mummified human remains, or sometimes just human remains, were seen as…they were commodities that could be bought, sold and traded. So we don't see that as right today, but back then, it was seen as acceptable.
Steph StrockThankfully, that practice has long since stopped.
Louise FureyWell, museums did a lot of things in the past that we don't do anymore. Practices and exchanges in the past were done because a museum didn't have certain types of objects that they wanted, and another museum did. So they would, they would do an exchange, and it happened between New Zealand and overseas museums as well, which is how we actually acquired one of the mummies, but also internally within New Zealand, because museums were all about the objects that they had and putting objects on display, and whereas now, museology is a lot more about using lesser objects, but telling the story.
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Steph StrockBefore retiring, Dr Louise Furey was the Museum's Archeology Curator, before Josh and she became heavily involved in solving the case of our mommy's mistaken identity, sort of by accident…
Louise FureyYes, coincidentally, I was researching another topic in Te Papa and a previous curator there had assembled these quite extensive books of information about their collections. I wasn't even looking at the Egyptian collection material. I was looking at some Māori ornaments, and as I was flicking through this book, which had letters as well as acquisition card information and newspaper clippings. I found this newspaper clipping that was there, related to Auckland Museum, dated 1970 and it was about the reading of the tapes on the mummy called Ta-Sedgemet. And it was sort of like, “Aha, what's going on here?” And it was quite clear that, in reading this article, that somewhere along the line, the names of the mummies had been switched. And so I came back to Auckland and started pursuing that a little bit in a little bit more detail.
Steph StrockSo Louise set about trying to restore the mummy’s correct name by having the hieroglyphics on her bandages and the interior of the coffin translated by egyptology experts. We know from her acquisition card that she was purchased by Julius von Haast, the then director of Canterbury Museum. He’d bought her from an Italian Egyptologist, along with several other artefacts in 1888, but when she came to Auckland Museum, hardly anything was known about her. In her time with us, we've gotten to know her a lot better. Several types of analyses have been performed over the years as more informative, nondestructive scientific techniques have been developed. In the early 70s, she was given a full body X-ray by the museum's ethnologist Mr. D R Simmons. This was widely reported at the time, with dozens of articles sharing the news that the museum's mummies were having X-rays to help solve the mysteries of their deaths.
Voice actorThe results show the bones of a mature woman aged between 18 and 35. Her abdomen was stuffed with spices and sweets, smelling ungents. A decaying reminder of ancient Egyptian civilization, the mummies represent the practices of bygone societies outside the museum in the Domain, the fresh greenness of the trees hastened the return to the present.
Steph StrockSome time later, between 1982 and 1994 a report was written about her by a local Egyptologist. It's around this time that she became mistakenly associated with the name Ta-Sedgemet. With this incorrect name, she was introduced to generations of interested visitors in her gallery at Auckland Museum. In the early 2000s, she was removed from display for a four-year conservation treatment.
Louise FureyShe came off display in the early 2000s. The coffin case was quite dusty, and being exposed to the open air, some of the paint was starting to flake off the exterior of it, so it was decided to do some extensive conservation work, it was also decided at that time to learn as much about her as the conservators and the curator could actually find out.
Steph StrockHer coffin was cleaned and the paint protected. Her bandages were stabilized and secured. At the same time, we sent off fragments of her linen wrappings and small pieces of Sycamore wood from her coffin to Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato - Waikato University, for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating is a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials that can be as old as up to 60,000 years. At this time, she was also given a full body CT scan at Mercy Ascot hospital, likely their oldest patient ever, by a very long way…
Louise FureyIt's also something quite unusual for an anatomist to actually interpret the CT scans of an ancient mummy. So there's, there's kind of a bit of a novelty value in that as well.
Steph StrockThe scan told us a lot about her. In life, she would have been about 156 centimetres tall, and seems to have had a healthy childhood with no telltale signs of illness at a young age. She lived a short life by today's standards, but one that was considered perfectly normal at the time.
Louise FureyThe anatomist reported that she was about 32-years-old, that she had very worn teeth from her diet, which probably contained a lot of abrasive material, and also that she had abscesses which were as a result of the worn down teeth. She must have lived in a great deal of pain. She also had inflamed sinuses, possibly related to the infection and in her teeth, and she had non Hodgkin's lymphoma, which probably killed her in the end. So his conclusion was that she was not a well woman.
Steph StrockWhile she was having the scan, the team had an opportunity to take images of the coffin, and these were posted online. Then in 2014, a French Egyptologist called Marion Claude saw these and got in touch to offer some additional information about the stylistic details of the coffin. It was then that we discovered that her name was not Ta-Sedgemet. So sometime over the last 100 years the details of our two mummies became intertwined. Ta-Sedgemet is actually the name of the mummified boy.
Louise FureySo the name, in the form of the hieroglyphics on the base and the interior of the lid was similar. They said her name was Souser-iret-binet, and that her mother, the lady of the house, was Aset-en-kheb. Her father's name is not recorded, and the inscriptions have a format. They invoke the protection of the gods and they introduce the name of the individual. So it's really a letter of introduction to the gods in the afterlife to look after this individual.
Steph StrockThis was a big moment. In Ancient Egypt, a person's name was inseparably connected to their personality or soul. It was an aspect of the “ka”, the essence of a person, which was transmitted from one generation to the next. Having your name be remembered through later generations was crucial to ensure eternal life.
Louise FureyWell, for all individuals, having a name is important for their identity, and sometimes in Ancient Egypt, the name also included a form of a god's name to ensure that the individual had protection. And that's why it's sometimes difficult to interpret these names, and which is probably why there are difficulties in actually finding a match for Souser’s name.
Steph StrockFor Egyptians in this period, your name was a thread connecting the realm of the living and the dead. It was so important that there are spells in the Coffin Texts and in the Book of the Dead aimed at preventing a person from forgetting their name after death. Once Louise and the international team of experts had uncovered the mistake, they got to work setting it right.
Louise FureyIt felt really good, actually. And it wasn't just me. I enlisted these specialists who put up with me asking these, these questions. I'm not an Egyptologist, I'm a Māori archaeologist, but I was the curator responsible for the collections, and also it was really important, out of respect, to ensure that she was referred to by her correct name. And so the label in Ancient Worlds was changed to reflect that, with a description of why the name had changed.
Steph StrockWe don't know exactly how this mistake happened, but it's likely it was just that, a mistake. Now both mummies have been reconnected with their names. Remember that ancient Egyptian text from the start of the episode? Man perishes. His corpse turns to dust. All his relatives pass away, but writings make him remembered in the mouth of the reader. Well, with her name no longer lost to the sands of time, we were able to reintroduce the woman lying in the Ancient Worlds gallery by her given name: Souser-iret-binet, whose mother was Aset-en-kheb. May she be remembered in the mouth of the reader.
We have about 2000 archaeological Egyptian taonga. So how did they make their way here? Well, through three main ways, purchases, donations and subscriptions. Yes, subscriptions. Long before we were pinged with monthly bills for Spotify Premium or Disney Plus, if you were rich enough, you could subscribe to a society that would go out and undertake archaeological digs. These subscriptions would ensure a trickle of objects found on their excavations, one of the most well known at the time was the Egypt Exploration Society, or the EES, which still exists today.
Josh EmmittSo that really began in the nineteenth century. So yeah, the Egypt Exploration Fund, then Society, was in the nineteenth century, and it was set up to help fund research and excavations in Egypt, and eventually it became more of what was common at the time, what you would loosely call a learned society where people would join with a common interest. And effectively, what it did for a number of years is they would fund excavations in Egypt, and in return they would get some of the finds. And then, being in a colonial context, they took whatever they wanted from Egypt, and they would get sent back to England, and then they would be distributed to subscribers.
Steph StrockAuckland Museum subscribed to this society from 1926 to 1935 over this period, we received numerous items from significant sites including Abydos and Amarna. Any regular Joe could sign up for a subscription, providing they had the cash.
Josh EmmittAuckland Museum for a number of years paid 10 pounds a year…
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Steph StrockToday, that would feel like over a grand winging its way out of your bank account.
Josh Emmitt…and we would get sent objects in return. And that went on for a number of years, and basically, just to fund the fieldwork in Egypt.
Steph StrockMany of the objects received are currently on display alongside Souser-iret-binet in Te Onemata Ancient Worlds gallery, including a number of bead necklaces, which were sent as part of the first shipment. Also from the Egypt Exploration Society, the Museum received three blue painted pots from the 1923 to 1924 excavation season at Amarna. According to archived distribution lists from the EES Auckland Museum should have only received one… score I guess? One of the most common ways we receive taonga is through donations, and many of our Egyptian items can be traced back to two of New Zealand's most significant stations in the First and Second World Wars. Soldiers in both World Wars who were stationed in Egypt turned home with artefacts, many of which were later donated to Auckland Museum. Egypt, often referred to more loosely as North Africa, was the first stop for most New Zealand service personnel on their way to the two World Wars. For many, it was a relatively short term stopover before going on to Britain and the continent. But for those who served in and around the Middle East, Egypt was an important administrative, medical, rest and recreational centre. So why Egypt? I spoke to the Museum's War History Curator, Gail Romano, to find out.
Gail RomanoIn the First World War, there was a strategic reason based on political geography, really. So the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1914, November 1914 and the New Zealand troops and the Australian troops were already on route at that stage, on transports. They went together, the main body of our force, and the main transport route was through the Suez Canal. Because, you know, that's a main communication and transport link for Britain, with its interests, and, you know, trading and colonial interests as well, particularly in India. So it was a major concern strategically when the Ottoman Empire entered the war, because that posed a direct threat on the Suez Canal and the access ways. So it was a fairly late decision to offload the New Zealand and Australia troops in Egypt instead of continuing through to Britain, where they would have gone. But added to that, actually, there was an overlay of overcrowding in the existing military camps in Britain that come, obviously entering winter, which wouldn't have been great for the troops, and there was a shortage of equipment as well. So for those reasons as well. It made some sense to stop them in Egypt. In the Second World War, those strategic reasons still existed, but slightly different. So the Suez Canal was still an important communication and transport link, but the major concern at that point was Italy joining the German forces, because Italy had colonial interests, or occupation interests in Libya, next door to Egypt, and also in some other areas in eastern Africa. And at that point, there was not only the concern for British interests in Egypt, but also for possible threats to the oil reserves in the Middle East and Britain had apparently offered to support or help Iran and Iraq if they became involved in the war. So you can see in both wars, there were some similarities there.
Steph StrockBoth Zeitoun, the initial large camp in the First World War, and Maadi camp in the Second World War were close to Cairo, and the capital offered lots to amaze, tempt and distract visitors from the other side of the world.
Gail RomanoOutside of what was thought of as their work day, because it was just, you know, that was your soldier’s job. They often had some free time in the evenings. Similar situation existed in the Second World War, and at that point, they were free to go and explore or spend time in the city, which they did, they became tourists. Many of them hadn't been overseas. This area, particularly, was one that was a little bit fabled. You know, there was a very strong sort of, I want to use the term romanticized, because in many ways, it was a romanticized idea about the Middle East, and so they were really keen to go and see all of these things they'd heard about. They took photos of themselves in front of the pyramids. They rode camels, they went to the bazaars, they shopped, they had as many experiences as they could, and in many ways, it depended too on how much spending money they had. There are letters home that talk about hawkers in the bazaar who are like small men, who are walking like small shops, because they've got so much material hanging off of so many things for sale, you know, that's actually just on their person. So the scenes and the smells and the excitement in that whole area must have been absolutely amazing.
Steph StrockOur service personnel bought mementos that captured something of the ‘exotic’ nature of where they were, and which were reasonably easy to send home or fit in their kit bags.
Gail RomanoThe bazaars were full of the sorts of things that still we tend to associate with what you can go and buy in the bazaars as they exist now, textiles, wooden items, tooled leather objects, Damascene items, metal that has been tooled, engraved and then inlaid with a gold and silver metal foil, and in the desert, of course, they also collected so pebbles, stones, and they collected experiences, and they collected photographs. So, a range of things, really, whatever they could buy and whatever they wanted to whatever they thought family back home might like as well, because a lot of what they purchased was gifted.
Steph StrockThe Mosky, the famed Cairo bazaar was a favorite destination, especially in the early days when the troops still had a bit of spare money.
Josh EmmittSome of it was authentic. Some was modern forgeries, but all of it soldiers would bring back, and sometimes they would give it to the Museum. They didn't want to have it anymore. It was a kind of a reminder for them they didn't want. In other cases, we still get, occasionally, people going through their grandparents or great grandparents’ effects and finding things, and they don't know what to do with them, so they bring them to us, and we'll, we'll take them from there.
Steph StrockRegardless of their authenticity, these items helped shape our understanding of what it was like for the soldiers during these wars. Some objects they picked up were certainly not forgeries, but were not always obtained by the most official means…One example of this is some beads from Heliopolis. They were unearthed when two soldiers requested some shovels from their quartermaster and started to dig at the site. They found some beads before being told a French archeology excavation was actually happening there, and were promptly moved on by a guard. Gail explained that there was also some animosity towards soldiers stationed in Egypt during the First World War.
Gail RomanoAnother phrase which has been associated with the First World War soldiers was ‘Massey's Tourists’. That really referred to, what was a sort of a feeling at the time, that the men in Egypt were just, you know, having a good time overseas.
Steph StrockBill Massey was our Prime Minister at the time, and as the New Zealand government had funded the troops’ voyage to North Africa (and given them the opportunity to sight-see…), this was a bit of a dig at the Kiwi troops.
Gail RomanoNot all those who put together Christmas parcels here were happy for their parcels to go to a serviceman who was stationed in Egypt. And there were some notes apparently put into some of the Christmas parcels that were packed, which says, I hope my parcel doesn't go to a serviceman in Egypt. And there was a letter that came home and said, I was unlucky enough to get this, this note. And I'm so sad that people think about it like this, because we work hard as not, not a good environment, and that was because they had, there was this perception that all the real work, all the danger was over on the Western Front. And so those who were stationed in North Africa in the top part there were having a bit of an easy time of it. So there might have been soldiers in name, but they weren't necessarily doing the job. And it's quite sort of sobering to think about that. You know that that was an attitude held by some people, not everybody, obviously, but held by some over here.
Steph StrockOf course, many of these soldiers went on to fight and die in the Gallipoli campaign, never to return to their homeland. For the soldiers who did return, those mementos took on other meanings inextricably linked to the experience of war, of trauma and of loss.
Josh EmmittFor our museum, it's really about a connection. For me, a big part of it is a connection to the soldiers. So it's the things they brought back, but also so the original reason for collecting, which was to have an association with Ancient Egypt, or with Egypt in itself, whereas the soldiers, some of the material they dropped off, they've got wartime stories associated with them. So that kind of becomes a part of the history here.
Gail RomanoBecause it's representative of the experience of those men overseas. So, you know, I've talked about the sorts of souvenir-type items that they perhaps brought home or sent home, but of course, the other material that we have quite a lot of, are pieces of military memorabilia that go with it. So you know, the badges, the uniform items, the miscellaneous bits and pieces, whether they're whistles or belts or so, that sort of material and some currency as well. That material represents the personal experience of that man in that particular situation. In the past, the museum collected differently, and we weren't alone in that. You know, museology was different then, and we tended to collect objects or/and collections just for their own sake. These days, we seek context as well. So an important part of anything that comes in now as we're keen to know something about that person, something about the personal experiences they actually had during active service, if the family is aware of that, you know, and in some instances, diaries and letters come in as part of it. So all of that augments the small collection, and that's its significance to us, not because, in of itself, it's historically important, but because the social experience that that man or woman has had.
Steph StrockThe other main way we acquired our collection is through purchases, which used to be totally commonplace for museums. Up until 1970 the Cairo Museum actually had a sales room where artefacts from excavations were sold along with duplicates of objects already on display. This was how Thomas Cheeseman, who was the Museum's first curator from 1874 to 1923, acquired many of the objects in our collection.
Josh EmmittSo it started off, really, that it was almost just kind of part of the general trend of what a museum has, trying to be encyclopedic, having material from all over the world. And there was this notion that, and I think it's in one of the correspondence from maybe not our museum, but I've seen it. Basically every museum needs a mummy, and that is the idea of having just that kind of, this is what a museum has, if they have a mummy and they have stuff from Ancient Egypt. And so that was kind of how it started. You know, where there was an interest in Egypt, because that's where soldiers were staying at that time. So they were staying in a place called Maadi, which is just south of Cairo, Southern Cairo. And it was more having material from Egypt back here in Aotearoa, so that people could feel a connection to where the soldiers served at the time.
Steph StrockWe have about two-thousand archeological items from Egypt gathered mostly from subscriptions, donations and purchases. But here and around the world, the tide has really shifted since they came to us. In the late twentieth century, there was a move to empower countries to have more agency over their taonga, which went all the way to the United Nations.
Josh EmmittSo UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation run obviously through the UN, and in 1976 they passed a resolution which was concerning the exchange of cultural property, and really it was meant to curb the black market of the antiquities trade, stop things being looted from other countries and put on to the private market. And really just kind of…a lot of countries were already stopping that. It was legal to do so, but there weren't really any teeth behind it, and there was definitely no international cooperation on it. So this was just a way to formalise that agreement. Egypt had been tightening down for quite a bit on sending material out of Egypt, but the Cairo Museum, until almost that until the 70s, actually had a shop where you could buy antiquities. So yeah, it was everything kind of stopped in 76 in that regard, where they weren't so openly traded. There, of course, is still a black market for antiquities, unfortunately. But this was really the start of, kind of trying to curb that in an international way.
(01:08):
Steph StrockMuch of what was taken from Egypt was shipped out during colonial rule. When Egypt gained its independence in the 1970s the flow of taonga out of the country began to decline. The Egyptian Government now requires you to have a PhD to apply for a permit to undertake excavations, and anything you find stays in Egypt where they can decide what happens with it. Today, we're not actively pursuing items from Ancient Egypt.
Josh EmmittWe have enough to tell the story, and there's a lot of stories within our collection. So we can tell stories about how we obtained this object or that object, or more the collection practices history, bit of what we've talked about. And I think that's where the real value in the collection lies. Talking around about, you know, with Souser-iret-binet, about why we have her and on display, and really articulating that so that we have people when they come and they learn about what has happened, how we're going to try and put it right, or the work that we're doing, and what might happen in the future.
Steph StrockNow it's more about looking after what we do have, and preparing it for whatever the next chapter in its life looks like. In the case of Souser-iret-binet, we're still working to do right by her.
Josh EmmittWe get a lot of some people saying that, why is why is it? Why is she on display? Take her off display and say, well, actually, there's, you know, we're trying to do it respectfully, and we're also trying to make sure that we're making people think about the issue, as opposed to just literally taking her off display, out of sight, out of mind, as I know this is an issue around the world. We need to actually appreciate this as a human here, and this is the approach we're taking for now, and that probably in ten years, won't be the approach we're taking then, but for now, we can use her as an educational example of the past practice, the current issues and practice and where we're going.
Steph StrockFor now, Souser-iret-binet continues to rest in our Ancient Worlds gallery, but one day she may return to Egypt.
Josh EmmittIt's not as simple as just sending her back to Egypt. There's a lot of history that needs to be uncovered as to how we got her, where she came from, and also it has to be the right time. That's the first thing in repatriation, it has to be the right time for the recipient community and Egypt, they have to be ready to receive her back, and they also need to be ready for every other museum to send back their mummies. And there's at least three institutions in New Zealand with an Egyptian mummy, and that's just in our relatively small country. So it gives you the idea of, they're going to have a lot of work, and we don't want to overwhelm that system.
Steph StrockA huge new museum is currently under construction in Giza, about two kilometres away from the pyramids. The Grand Egyptian Museum will host over 100,000 artefacts from ancient Egypt and will be the world's largest archeological museum. It's our understanding that once opened, it will have the capacity to deal with repatriations. Until that call comes, Souser-iret-binet will be well cared for.
Josh EmmittWe try to be custodians. So it's looking after the time. Or the artefacts from elsewhere that we have as best we can, making sure that they're cared for, they're preserved, and starting discussions with the countries of origin. We're talking to the Egyptian community, we're talking to the embassy, and working through what we do with a lot of our taonga. And the Egyptian community, in our brief conversation so far, are actually very happy with our display of Egyptian, Ancient Egyptian material, and some of them feel that it creates a connection back home for them. And they can bring their kids to Auckland, and they can't necessarily go back to Egypt all the time, but they can bring them to the Museum and see at least some of their ancient Egyptian culture. And that's, that's quite cool. I think.
Steph StrockThat was ‘Collecting Egypt’. This episode was written and produced by me, Steph Strock and Laura Skerritt. Sound Design by Sara O'Brien. The executive producer was Teresa Cowie from Connect Content. Thanks to our guests, Dr Josh Emmitt, Dr Louise Furey and Gail Romano. Thanks also to Collection Manager Archaeology, Deidre Harrison for writing the original blog this episode is based on. Voice acting by Ian Proctor. For more information about our Egypt collection and to learn more about Souser-iret-binet’s journey, visit the links in our show notes. If you've enjoyed the podcast so far, please help others to find us by clicking follow, giving us a review or just spreading the word. We're going to be taking a bit of a break from publishing over the summer, but we'll be back with a new episode of The Amp in February.
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