BRITISH MUSEUM

Ancient Egypt I
The Rosetta Stone From Egypt Ptolemaic Period, 196 BC

A valuable key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs, the inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests. It is one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation. The decree is inscribed on the stone three times, in hieroglyphic (suitable for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for daily purposes), and Greek (the language of the administration). The importance of this to Egyptology is immense. Soon after the end of the fourth century AD, when hieroglyphs had gone out of use, the knowledge of how to read and write them disappeared. In the early years of the nineteenth century, some 1400 years later, scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on this stone as the key to decipher them. The hieroglyphs record the sound of the Egyptian language and lay the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture. Soldiers in Napoleon's army discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799 while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta). On Napoleon's defeat, the stone became the property of the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria (1801) along with other antiquities that the French had found. Statue of Nenkheftka From Deshasha, Egypt 5th Dynasty, around 2400 BC

This statue comes from Nenkheftka's tomb at Deshasha. Free-standing statues such as this were a characteristic feature of the tombs of the Old Kingdom (about 2613-2160 BC). The tombs often had a dedicated statue-chamber, usually known by the arabic termserdab. Statues such as the one shown here were intended to keep the memory and the personality of the deceased person alive, so that even if his body were destroyed his spirit would still be able to reside in the statue. It is rare to find statues dating to the Fifth Dynasty (about 2494-2345 BC) that, like this one, come from outside the cemeteries associated with Memphis, the capital city. This example is of a far higher quality than any others known from the provinces, and has much in common stylistically with those from Memphis. The superb rendering of the facial features and detailing of the wig make this a masterpiece of Egyptian sculpture.
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Colossal bust of Ramesses II, the Younger Memnon From the Ramesseum, Thebes, Egypt 19th Dynasty, about 1250 BC

One of the largest pieces of Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum, this statue shows Ramesses II, who succeeded his father Sethos I in around 1279 BC and ruled Egypt for 67 years. Weighing 7.25 tons, this fragment of his statue was cut from a single block of two-coloured granite. He is shown wearing the nemes head-dress surmounted by a cobra diadem. The sculptor has used a slight variation of normal conventions to relate his work to the viewer, angling the eyes down slightly, so that the statue relates more to those looking at it. It was retrieved from the mortuary temple of Ramesses at Thebes (the 'Ramesseum') by Giovanni Belzoni in 1816. Belzoni wrote a fascinating account of his struggle to remove it, both literally, given its colossal size, and politically. The hole on the right of the torso is said to have been made by members of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century, in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the statue.

Middle East or Ancient Near East

Khorsabad Khorsabad, northern Iraq Neo-Assyrian, about 710-705 BC

This is one of a pair of colossal human-headed winged bulls, magical figures which once guarded an entrance to the citadel of the Assyrian king Sargon II (721-705 BC). Late in his reign Sargon built himself a new capital city, which he called Dur-Sharrukin ('the fortress of Sargon'), known today as Khorsabad. Among the buildings was a magnificently sculptured palace, which was discovered by the French archaeologist Paul-Emile Botta between 1842 and 1844. When the French abandoned the site they left behind the pair of bulls because they were too heavy to move. In 1849 Henry Rawlinson, the British Resident in Baghdad, bought them from the French consul, and resolved the problem of their weight - about sixteen tons of alabaster each - by having them sawn into several bits. Between the legs of the winged bull there is a long cuneiform inscription listing Sargon's titles, ancestry and achievements. Roughly scratched on the plinth is a grid for the 'Game of Twenty Squares', a descendant of the Royal Game of Ur. This may have been scratched in by palace guards, or people waiting to enter.

Ancient Greece and Rome

Parthenon Greece 447-432 BC

The Parthenon was built as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme on the Acropolis of Athens. The temples great size and lavish use of white marble was intended to show off the citys power and wealth at the height of its empire. Room 18 exhibits sculptures that once decorated the outside of the building. The pediments and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek mythology, while the frieze represents the people of contemporary Athens in religious procession. Athens When the Parthenon was completed in 432 BC, Athens had already embarked on the disastrous 'Peloponnesian War' against Sparta. Final defeat in 404 BC brought about the end of Athens golden age and stripped the city of its empire, defences and - for a time at least - its democratic government. The building programme on the Athenian Acropolis was interrupted by the war. Marble grave-markers and smaller objects explore the themes of war and death, and war and escapism.

Ancient Egypt II
Egyptian Life and Death The Tomb-Chapel of Nebamun 1400 1300 BC

The British Museum acquired 11 wall-paintings from the tomb-chapel of a wealthy Egyptian official called Nebamun in the 1820s. Dating from about 1350 BC, they are some of the most famous works of art from Ancient Egypt. Following a ten-year period of conservation and research, the paintings are now on display together for the first time. They give the impression of the walls of colour that would have been experienced by the ancient visitors to the tomb-chapel. Objects dating from the same time period and a 3D animation of the tomb-chapel will help to set the tomb-chapel in context and allow visitors to experience how the finished tomb would have looked.

Egyptian Death and Afterlife: Mummies About 2686 BC AD 395 Death and the afterlife held particular significance and meaning for the ancient Egyptians. Complex funeral preparations and rites were thought to be needed to ensure the transition of the individual from earthly existence to immortality. Mummification, magic and ritual are investigated through the objects on display in Rooms 6263. These include coffins, mummies, funerary masks, portraits and other items designed to be buried with the deceased. Modern research methods such as x-rays and CT scans are used to examine the mummification process. Early Egypt 3100 2600 BC Rapid advances in the technology and social organisation of Egypt during the fifth millennium BC produced a material culture of increasing sophistication. Further innovations followed in about 3100 BC when the separate Predynastic peoples of upper and lower Egypt were united under a single ruler. The resulting increase in wealth and strong central control led to dramatic achievements in architecture, writing and fine goods, culminating in the building of the Great Pyramids of Giza in around 2600 BC. Objects on display illustrate the cultural, technological and political development of early civilisation in Egypt throughout this period. Ginger Gebelein, Egypt Predynastic period, around 3500 BC

A naturally preserved mummy in a reconstructed pit-grave. This man died more than five thousand years ago and was buried at the site of Gebelein, in Upper Egypt. The reconstruction of his grave illustrates the early Egyptian custom of placing the body in a contracted, foetal position, usually on the left side, with the head to the south, facing the west, the land of the dead where he would be reborn. Around him were all the things he might need for his afterlife, especially pottery to hold and serve food. In the Predynastic period (4400-3100 BC), the time before the pharaohs, the dead were buried in shallow graves cut into the desert sand. The graves were often lined with reed mats, making them like a bed, and the body was covered with linen or skins and more mats, like a blanket, before the grave was refilled and perhaps topped by a mound of dirt. Contact
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with the hot dry sand naturally preserved the bodies because the sand absorbed the water that constitutes approximately 75% by weight of the human body. Bacteria cannot breed without moisture and as a result, the bodies frequently did not decay, but simply dried out. The body of this man is remarkably well-preserved, even down to his finger-nails and hair, which has probably faded with time. Chance discoveries of these sand-dried mummies (for example, when a grave was disturbed by animals or robbers), may have promoted the belief that physical preservation of the body was necessary for the afterlife. This may have led the later Egyptians to develop means of artificial mummification after the introduction of coffins and deeper graves separated the body from the natural drying effects of the sand.

The Sainsbury African Galleries

Fertility Rites Fertility Doll Young girls in Ghana play with these carved dolls that are often given to them by their fathers. The dolls are fun to play with, but people also believe that they have magic powers that will help the girl have her own baby when she gets older. Womans Ceremonial Garment From Jerba Island, Tunisia Late 20th century AD

Wedding ceremonies in North Africa are not simply celebrations of the wedding of two individuals and families, but also demonstrations of status, wealth, prestige, honour and fertility. The marriage ceremony is one of the most significant acts by which individuals change their social status. Marriage partners may be chosen with economic or personal status in mind; there may also be a wish to strengthen existing bonds between families. Marriage is seen as the ideal adult state in Muslim societies: single men and women are felt to be inadequate and are viewed with suspicion. Women are expected to adopt certain duties, restrictions and patterns of behaviour after marriage. These changes may be encapsulated in alterations in types of dress, or in individual items of clothing or personal adornment. Costume also plays a major role in the wedding ceremony. The ceremonial garment, biskri, is first worn as part of a woman's wedding dress. The names of the bands of pattern beans, rice, heart, eyes, chair, figure of eight- reflect a concern for fertility and domestic harmony, as well as protection from the evil eye. Above the two weft bands are two groups of motifs woven in metal thread, depicting perfume bottles and combs (mishat).

 Tools From Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania Lower Palaeolithic, about 1.8 million years old

These chopping tools and others like them are the oldest objects in the British Museum. They come from an early human campsite in the bottom layer of deposits in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and represent the world's first technological invention. Walking upright on two legs enabled our earliest ancestors to search for food throughout the day when it was too hot for other animals to hunt. For some four to five million years this ensured survival, but small body size and lack of speed, fangs and claws evened up the competition with other predators. Tool-making began in East Africa about 2.4 million years ago. Instead of just picking up sticks or finding stones with sharp edges early humans began to shape the tools they needed. Using another hard stone as a hammer, they discovered that by knocking flakes off both sides of a pebble or large flake they could create sharp regular edges. These could be used to chop branches from trees, cut meat from large animals or smash bones for marrow fat - an essential part of the early human diet. The flakes could also be used as small knives for light duty tasks. Tools which could also have been used as weapons gave early human ancestors a new advantage. In these early artefacts it is possible to see the first spark of creative genius that set humans apart from other animals and gradually enabled us to adapt to different, often changing conditions all over the world. The chopping tools featured here are made from quartzite and basalt cobbles. The Tree of Life The diverse cultural life of Africa has been expressed through everyday objects and unique works of art since ancient times. The Museums collection of over 200,000 African items encompasses archaeological and contemporary material from across the continent. Transforming Arms into Tools (TAE) was set up by Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane in 1995 and is supported by Christian Aid. During Mozambique's civil war, which lasted from 1976 to 1992, millions of guns and other weapons poured into the country and most of them remain hidden or buried in the bush. The project is an attempt to eliminate the threat presented by the hidden weapons. Mozambicans are encouraged to hand them over in exchange for items like ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines. In one case a whole village gave up its weapons in exchange for a tractor. Once the weapons are decommissioned, they are cut up and turned into sculptures by the artists in Maputo. This process has produced the Tree of Life and the Throne of Weapons, also created by Kester.
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