With Egypt lying four thousand miles away from Sheffield, you’d be forgiven for being surprised that Sheffield Museums has a permanent Egyptian exhibit. But alas it does! Weston Park Museum’s most unexpected exhibit is a trove of Egyptian treasures we were all fascinated by as children, with much of that fascination still continuing.
Ancient Egypt is a small exhibit featuring artefacts that characterised one of the most advanced cultures of their age, from canopic jars for storing organs, to amulets and even a sarcophagus. With items from a range of ages, discovered and brought to Britain by archaeologists and explorers, these objects are as much an insight into the role Britain has played in our understanding of this civilisation as it is on the society itself.
Entering this exhibit, I felt strangely transported back to my childhood, when I first learned about the ancient Egyptians and the various parts of their culture, and this collection certainly does a great job at bringing back these memories – knowing what some of the items were before reading their description is a strange feeling! Whilst the collection was interesting, and definitely popular with children, I was a little confused as to why the exhibit was there at all. With everything else in Weston Park Museum heavily focused on the city of Sheffield, this collection is particularly out-of-place, which didn’t exactly affect my enjoyment of the items themselves, I was side-tracked for a some of the collection trying to figure this out.
There were a lot of unique items, but surprisingly, I found myself drawn most to ‘Egyptian, No.4’, from ‘The Grammar of Ornament’ by artist Owen Jones. This is the second piece of his I’ve been drawn to at Sheffield Museums (the first being ‘Byzantine, No.1’, from ‘The Grammar of Ornament’ in The Ruskin Collection: Hand, Head and Heart – read our review here). The pieces are very similar, which may explain my liking of it, yet this piece caught my eye a lot more than other items in the collection, which is unexpected given what else the collection had to show.
Ancient Egypt is a nice little exhibit for people interested in civilisations that came before, as well as those who want to reconnect with their primary school learning. It’s easily digestible and a simple collection, but one of the more unusual in the museum.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Ancient Egypt is a continuing display at Weston Park Museum
