Brussels exhibition sheds new light on Egyptian archaeology

Matchbooks and cigarette packs are the last thing you expect to see under glass in the Egyptian section of the Cinquantenaire Museum, still less a wrapping paper for candles made in Antwerp. But their presence in the museum’s Djehutihotep exhibition brings a new perspective to the modern practice of archaeology.

Djehutihotep was the governor of a province in middle Egypt around 1840 before the current era. His richly decorated tomb near the present-day town of Dayr al-Barcha attracted European visitors from the 17th century onwards and became the focus of archaeological investigations at the end of the 19th century.

These expeditions documented and often removed the relics and artworks they discovered, sending them to museums in Europe and the US. Sometimes enterprising locals got there first, selling the contents of tombs to dealers and collectors.

Even after these depredations, the tombs at Dayr al-Barcha still have a lot to tell archaeologists. Teams from the Egyptology department at the University of Leuven have been visiting the area since 2002, and the exhibition documents some of their discoveries.

One aim for modern expeditions is to find things that previous archaeologists had missed. In 2007, for example, the Leuven team located an unopened tomb, which, when excavated, was found to contain the body of Henu, a minor official. On top of his coffin were a pair of sandals, for his spirit to wear in the afterlife, and the tomb was full of other symbolic items intended to ensure his wellbeing beyond the grave.

Nothing leaves Egypt

A video in the exhibition shows the opening of the burial chamber and these delicate items being removed. They are carefully passed from hand to hand along a human chain up to the surface.

These artefacts do not appear in the exhibition. “It’s standard practice that everything that is found on excavations in Egypt stays in Egypt,” says Marleen De Meyer, the Leuven researcher who led the work. “Nothing goes abroad any more.”

Instead, the exhibition displays the contents of a similar tomb, discovered in 1899 in a cemetery 10 kilometres north of Dayr al-Barcha. Although acquired by the Cinquantenaire Museum in 1901, this is the first time all the artefacts have been presented together.

The Leuven researchers also found relics in previously opened tombs that past archaeologists had overlooked. For example, in one burial chamber were the bones of ducks and cranes, where they had been left as offerings.

A more ambiguous task involves restoring things damaged by previous archaeologists. In the tomb of Djehutihotep, a British team visiting in 1891-1892 cut up friezes in order to remove them. In the rubble they left behind, the Leuven team found sufficient fragments to digitally reconstruct images, matching them with sketches made before the damage took place.

As well as rubble, previous archaeologists left behind artefacts of their own, which the Leuven team has carefully collected. This is where the cigarette packs and the Antwerp candle wrapper come in, left by an American team visiting in 1915.

These are certainly entertaining, such as the matchbook bearing the slogan: “Thank you. We appreciate your patronage. Call again.” But beyond curiosity value, they can also tell present archaeologists more about past expeditions.

“Old excavation reports are not always very detailed and sometimes they don’t exist at all,” De Meyer explains, “so if you find a piece of newspaper with a date of 1915, for instance, at the bottom of a shaft that has been filled with debris afterwards you can get an idea of when the shaft was opened and who might have been excavating it.”

They also shed light on how excavations were conducted. For example, the Victorian expedition produced watercolours of tomb decorations, recording them in unprecedented detail. The Leuven team found a paint-covered scrap of paper in the tomb of Djehutihotep that lines up with one of the finished images, showing that they were painted on the spot.

Meanwhile, scraps of paper covered in sketches of hieroglyphs suggest these were recopied later. “That gives us a little bit of an insight into how people were working at the time,” says De Meyer.

The exhibition has brought a number of the watercolours over from their home in Oxford. Most are by Howard Carter, then only in his late teens, who would later discover the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Having collected the traces of past expeditions, De Meyer is aware that others may follow in her footsteps. “Every time I excavate a shaft, when it’s finished and before we backfill, I leave a little note in each tomb, saying when it was excavated and by whom.”

And like the Victorians, the Leuven expeditions also leave more mundane traces behind. Which is not a problem. “You are part of the history of the site in the end.”

Until 20 April, Cinquantenaire Museum, Brussels
Photo: The intact grave of Hennu, an ancient Egyptian governor