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In Flanders Fields Museum (Ieper). --- Morris, Wendy.

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En 1822, lorsque Jean-François Champollion élucide le mystère des hiéroglyphes, une civilisation oubliée retrouve la parole, et une nouvelle discipline scientifique voit le jour : l’égyptologie. C’est le début de deux siècles d’expéditions vers l’Égypte des pharaons, dans la foulée du périple des armées de Bonaparte. Des expéditions dans la vallée du Nil lancées par des générations d’archéologues, mais aussi des expéditions vers les musées occidentaux de milliers d’objets égyptiens qui, loin de leur terre d’origine, émerveillent, intriguent et éveillent un inépuisable désir d’Égypte. À travers une sélection d’objets dont certains sont révélés pour la première fois, cet ouvrage raconte les épisodes les plus marquants de l’histoire de la collection égyptienne des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire de Bruxelles, un récit tissé de personnages romanesques et ponctué de palpitantes découvertes archéologiques. Voyager dans cette histoire, c’est aussi partir en expédition, à la recherche de nos propres sources du Nil et de notre inépuisable fascination pour la civilisation pharaonique. Ce voyage est jalonné par les interventions artistiques de l’artiste égyptienne Sara Sallam (°1991) qui, à travers ses oeuvres nourries de souvenirs de son enfance et de son regard empreint de poésie, s’interroge sur l’histoire et le sens de l’égyptologie, tout en explorant l’identité égyptienne d’aujourd’hui.

Excavations (Archaeology) --- Archaeological museums and collections --- Egyptology --- Egyptologists --- Art, Egyptian --- Sculpture, Egyptian --- History --- Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire (Belgium). --- Egypt --- Civilization --- Expéditions archéologiques --- Art égyptien. --- Antiquités égyptiennes. --- Antiquités --- Histoire. --- Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire (Bruxelles).

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Art --- drawings [visual works] --- racial discrimination --- artists' films --- Eerste Wereldoorlog --- Morris, Wendy --- South Africa

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This paper examines the methodological potential regarding the reconstruction of the archaeological and historical context of isolated Egyptian artefacts in museum collections through the case study of the stela of May (E.05300) at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. This limestone stela has an upper register representing king Seti I and prince Ramesses in front of Osiris, Isis and Horus, and a lower register representing a worshiper called May, in front of who a hieroglyphic text containing an Osiris hymn is inscribed. The object has been part of the museum collection since its excavation by John Garstang at Abydos in 1909. This is the only provenance information that is available from the museum records. That does not mean that the stela has never been studied: its text has been translated numerous times, and its transmission history within its family of hymns has been analysed. Beyond this philological work, the object has not enjoyed much attention. My research has attempted to reconstruct its archaeological and historical context by approaching it from different angles. First, the physical materiality of the stela has been studied. Then, its archaeological context has been examined by means of the study of archival documents at the RMAH and at the Garstang Museum of Archaeology Archives at the University of Liverpool. This has revealed that the stela has been re-used in a secondary tomb context from the Ptolemaic period. It has become possible to tentatively reconstruct the tomb architecture and its location within the processional landscape of Abydos. However precious these insights, archival research has yielded no results regarding E.05300’s primary context. To obtain information about this original context, I turned to the object itself with its text and representations. On the textual level, an epigraphic drawing has permitted to conduct a palaeographic analysis that revealed the existence of unique hieroglyphs. Grammatical study of the verb vorms employed has led to insights regarding the cultic functioning of the hymn, with May impersonating the king during the temple ritual for Osiris. On the visual level, iconographic and compositional analysis has allowed to identify E.05300 as the commemorative stela of temple official May, who through the representational use of the king as an intermediary, retells his involvement in prestigious ritual activity. The object celebrates this important life event. Together, the combined insights of the textual and the visual analyses foreground May’s intention to commemorate his religious privilege, and demonstrate sophisticated interplay between text and image. They also raise the question of religious convictions and practices in the Ramesside period. This research demonstrates that Ramesside votive stelae, longtime considered witnesses of the movement of personal piety, may above all be understood as expressions of practical religion. Lastly, stylistic analysis has shown the stela’s indebtedness to both post-Amarna and early Ramesside artistic codes. In summary, this case study has yielded a wealth of contextual information about an isolated artefact. Whereas archival study has brought to light the secondary archaeological context of E.05300, textual and visual analysis have generated precious insights regarding its primary context. In this way, this modest exercise demonstrates the potential of a holistic methodological approach to the study of museum artefacts.