Egyptomaniacs can indulge their passion in London and, Jenny Jobbins says, they need move only a stone's throw from the British Museum Click to view caption Years ago I heard there was a Flinders Petrie museum in London, but on making enquiries I was told it was not open to the public and it was extremely difficult to bully one's way in. I hummed and hahad a bit, but eventually I forgot all about it. Recently, however, while my son was entertaining me to lunch in the faculty lounge at University College London, where he is a research fellow, and just as I was tucking into my vegetables, he mentioned that afterwards he would show me round the college library and then drop me off at the Petrie Museum. "I'd like that very much," I murmured sincerely, to a distinct lack of the sound of ringing bells. But somewhere in the sandy archives of my mind a long-forgotten shred of information began to push its way to the surface, irritating the grey matter until I let out an inner "Aha!" The closed and barred museum! "Can one see it?" I asked tentatively. "Yes, anyone can go in," he said. We lingered over coffee before leaving the lounge. The students were beginning to drift back from a short vacation, but classes had not yet begun and the college buildings were relatively empty. We passed through the hall where, with bizarre English eccentricity, the clothed and padded skeletal remains of the college's spiritual founder, the philosopher Jeremy Bentham -- who held the ethical doctrine that all actions are right when they promote the happiness of the greatest number -- are kept in a cupboard. Bentham was fitted with a wax head when the preservation of the real head went terribly wrong. For a long time the original and by now rather unattractive real head lay on the floor between Jeremy Bentham's legs, which was too much for some students, especially those from King's College, and led to frequent abductions -- on one occasion it was found in a luggage locker at Aberdeen station. About 30 years ago students from King's stole the head and played football with it (perhaps to prove how happy it made them), since when it has been locked in a vault. After a security lady with a welcoming smile (and clearly used to mothers) had allowed me to by-pass the turnstile, we climbed up the curved marble staircase to the library, a magnificent hall which radiates the great value the Victorians placed on learning. It is impressive indeed, a monument to the 19th-century ethic that study leads to happiness for the greater number of people. My son led me to Egyptology. Two researchers were buried in their books, and did not look up. On some of the shelves were green cloth-bound volumes of translated hieroglyphic and demotic texts and codices. I took one off the shelf, and the pages fell open at a passage about the domestic arrangements of a household in Alexandria. It was thrilling to have sudden access to all this information. Too thrilling. I could have stayed all afternoon and the rest of the week, but what I really wanted to see right now was the museum. This was in a building on the British Museum side of the university, the south side, leading out to Malet Place. Again the turnstile, but when we asked if I might enter to visit the museum the security officer smilingly opened the gate and gave directions. Up the stairs, round the corner, left right. My son stayed a moment to point out some special features and then went back to work. I glanced around. There was a long, rather cramped room leading to other, similar rooms. It was crammed with objects, but somehow avoided being cluttered. Row upon row of glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls, with row upon row of pots labelled Meidum, Meröe, Nubia, Syria, Palestine, Mostagedda, Diospolis, Tarkhan, Naqada and so on and so on. In a display case near the entrance was a bead net dress which might have belonged to a tiny belly-dancer, and in another was the top half of a silver-threaded linen dress. The material was so fine and fresh that I wondered how old it could be, but the label was faded and the printing small and I couldn't read the details, so I enlisted the help of the young lady with pretty, tight curls who sat at the till beside the door. "It's 2,800 years old," she said. "Oh," I replied, pleasantly surprised, "No, wait," she said. "It's 2,800 BC." She confessed she had studied ancient Greece. The dress was, in fact, the earliest linen garment ever found. She went on to enthuse about the other dress, the bead one, which was hung with little brass nipple caps, and is one of only two found to date, the other being in Boston. It was probably made for a girl of 10 or 12 years old. "We don't know if she wore anything underneath," she said. So how did these exquisite dresses find their way to University College London? The Department of Egyptology at UCL began in 1892 with the foundation of the Edwards Chair, the first chair dedicated specifically to Egyptian archaeology anywhere in the world, and the bequest of the novelist and explorer Amelia Edwards. Miss Edwards had published A Thousand Miles up the Nile and Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers, and was recognised in her own day as the first woman Egyptologist. She genuinely loved Egypt, and was appalled by the neglect of the monuments, the systematic vandalism and tomb robbing. Priceless objects were being removed and sold on the open market. To study and help protect them, she founded the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882. Miss Edward's 5,000-pound bequest on her death 10 years later yielded an annual income of 140 pounds, to be applied to the founding of "a Professorship in Egyptian Archaeology and Philology, including the deciphering and reading of hieroglyphs and other ancient Egyptian scripts and writings". She also bequeathed her books and photographs of Egypt, as well as all her Egyptian antiquities. She stipulated in her will that no official from the British Museum should hold the chair, and in a surprising codicil she added: "Neither shall the first Professor occupying the Chair be a man above forty years of age." It seems the clause about museum officials was inserted to exclude E A Wallis Budge, then assistant keeper in the Egyptian department, with whom she was not on good terms. The second was to ensure that the chair was given to the only man who qualified: her protégé William M Flinders Petrie, aged 39, whose seminal work in the Middle East played such a great part in the development of the science of archaeology. Accordingly Petrie, who 12 years before had single-handedly surveyed the Giza Pyramids and had later excavated in the Nile Delta for the Egypt Exploration Fund, became the first holder of the chair at UCL. The terms of his appointment stipulated that he would lecture at the college during the first and third terms of each academic year and spend the winters excavating in Egypt, providing practical tuition for his students. Indeed, when he was knighted, on 26 July 1923, it was for "services to Egypt". Petrie moved his own study collection from his house in Kent and added it to that of Miss Edwards. This material formed the basis of the department's teaching collection, and has been used to instruct several generations of budding Egyptologists. Petrie, who held the Edwards Chair for 41 years until 1933, continued to add to his collection. He advanced the then revolutionary idea that small finds such as fragments of pottery were as important to the overall picture as more spectacular finds, a methodology later espoused by all Egyptologists. The methodical care with which he identified and catalogued each piece, from the smallest pin to columns and mummy cartonnages, ensured that these items at least were preserved for posterity and made available to the students for study and research. The Petrie Museum opened to the public in its present form some years ago. Groups are welcome, but the organisers say space makes it unsuitable for children under five. Outside researchers can use the museum by appointment. For Egyptomaniacs this is a very important collection, holding 80,000 objects from Egypt, Sudan and regions nearby dating from pre-dynastic to Byzantine times. I particularly liked the small personal objects and the beautiful Fayoum portraits. To me it is one of those museums you could get attached to, like browsing in the window of a favourite jeweller. "Did you enjoy it?" asked the security guard as I left the building. "Very much," I said. I crossed Torrington Place and looked at my watch. It was mid-afternoon. Just time to nip into the British Museum... Practical information Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology University College London Malet Place London WV1E 6BT 44 (0) 20 7679 2884 [email protected] www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk Admission free Nearest tube stations: Euston, Euston Square, Warren Street, Russell Square, Goodge Street. Open Tuesday to Friday 1.00pm to 5.00pm, Saturday 10.00am to 1.00pm.
