Egyptology collection overview

What have we got?

Bolton’s collection of Egyptian and Sudanese objects is probably the most important Egyptian collection in a British local authority museum (ie a non-National, non-University Museum), and numbers around 10,000 objects. All phases of Egyptian material culture from the Neolithic Period (c. 5,000BC) to the Arab Period (7th Century AD onwards) are represented.

How was it acquired?

Most museum collections of Egyptian objects originated in private collections donated to the institution. Bolton’s Egyptian collections are unusual – and valuable – in containing mainly excavated objects. In the 19th Century, excavators would ask institutions and individuals for money and offer a share of any finds received in return. The first Egyptian objects arrived in the museum in 1884, the gift of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES).

Annie Barlow

At this time, Annie Barlow (1863-1941), the youngest child of textile magnate James Barlow, began to take an interest in Egypt. She visited Egypt in 1887 and became Honorary Secretary of the Bolton branch of the EES, responsible for raising money to support its excavations; Bolton (the area not the Museum) was one of the major supporters of the EES well into the 20th Century. Annie Barlow would have been entitled to a share of the objects found, but she ceded this to the Museum. Many of the most spectacular objects in the collection, such as the granite column fragments and decorated slab from Bubastis, and the group of coffins, were essentially donated by her. One of the coffins will shortly be sent to the United States as part of an exhibition on the work of the archaeologist Flinders Petrie.

Bolton’s Egyptian collection is largely due to the Museum’s and Annie Barlow’s support of the EES. It contains objects from most EES excavations from 1884 onwards. A particular highlight of the collection is a group of material from the site of Tell el Amarna, the short-lived capital of Egypt under Akhenaten (c. 1350BC), the “heretic” pharaoh who abandoned the cults of the old Egyptian gods in favour of the cult of the sun disc Aten. The Amarna material offers a snapshot of a city at a single moment in time, from richly decorated palaces to labourers’ houses; in 1999-2001, objects from the Amarna collection were included in an international loan exhibition on the art of the period.

As a textile town, Bolton had an especial interest in receiving textiles from Egypt, where the dry desert sand preserves organic material extremely well. Egyptian linen was renowned in antiquity for its high quality; 19th Century weavers studied samples to try to improve their work and find inspiration for designs.  The work of William and Thomas Midgley in the study of textiles and fibres gave Bolton an international reputation in this field. As a result, archaeologists offered Bolton museum textiles from their excavations in return for an analysis of their finds. The Midgleys’ work appears in many excavation reports, and as a result the museum’s Egyptian textile collection, especially from the “Coptic” period (c. 4th – 10th Centuries AD) is one of the most important in Britain (see below).

The collection has also been augmented by purchase and gift.

In 1977 a collection of largely unprovenanced Egyptian linen was given by the Petrie Museum, University College London. Most is in poor condition and is still awaiting study but the collection includes two unique bundles of fossilised bones.  Bolton maintains excellent relations with the Petrie Museum and displays a number of Petrie Museum objects on long term loan.

Ragdale collection

In 1979 Stand Grammar School gave the collection of Alderman John Ragdale. Ragdale, a chairman of the school governors in 1913, was active as a collector in the late 19th – early 20th Centuries; his collection was given to Stand Grammar School after his death. The Ragdale collection contains few important Egyptian objects but is a fascinating cabinet of curiosities.

Wellcome donation

In 1981 the Wellcome Museum for the History of Medicine donated over 300 objects. At the start of the 20th Century the pharmaceutical millionaire Sir Henry Wellcome began collecting objects on a gargantuan scale to illustrate the history of medicine from neolithic times to the present day; he was especially interested in collecting Egyptian objects, as many can be related to mummification and burial. After his death in 1936 large parts of his collection, including the Egyptian objects, were not deemed “relevant”, kept in storage, and dispersed from the 1960s onwards.

The material assigned to Bolton comprised a large collection of fabrics and more miscellaneous objects. The fabrics include samples of mummy cloth cut off as souvenirs of public unwrappings of mummies in the 19th Century, several rare ancient painted cloths, and mummified animals. Among the other objects are an extremely fine wooden shabti figure and some unusual Coptic wooden sculptures, which complement the collection of textiles.

In 1992 the museum acquired a portion of the Tamworth Castle collection, which included some interesting faience pieces.

A few purchases have been made from the 1960s onwards, least fortunately the forged “Amarna Princess” figure acquired in 2003. A small statue group of the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1600BC) was acquired in 2006, and other purchases are planned.

What are the strengths of the collection?

The Egyptian collection is able to display an overview of 5,000 years of Egyptian culture and its continuing legacy in Egypt and Britain in a way few other museums can. Overall the display is a magnet for school groups and interested parties throughout the North West and specialist visitors and researchers from all around the world. In the past 18 months, the reserve Egyptian collections have been seen by numerous museum visitors and groups, and the collections have been studied by researchers from Australia, Europe, Britain, and the USA, with results that will feed into new displays.

The unique selling point of the Egyptian collection is the textile collection, which in its chronological coverage and quality and range of securely provenanced archaeological material is unique in Britain, if not the world; there are larger collections, such as those of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but these are mainly formed of unprovenanced fragments purchased on the art market.

Textiles an "internationally important resource"

The Bolton Collection has been described as containing “very significant excavated groups from Egypt” and as “an internationally important resource for the study of ancient textiles” by Dr Helen Whitehouse, Curator of Egyptology at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and a leading scholar in the material culture of the later Roman Empire in Egypt. Dr Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood of the Textile Research Centre in the Netherlands has said “the Bolton collection of archaeological textiles is one of the most interesting and yet least appreciated collections in Britain. As a student I worked on part of this collection for my PhD and so I can state from personal experience just how very valuable this collection was and is as a research tool and resource. The current exhibition at Bolton by Ros Ford (“From a Modern Land”) is also a good indication of how the cultural and artistic value of these textiles can be developed by artists and presented to the general public in an accessible manner.”

International carbon dating research project

More generally, the high level and quality of archaeologically provenanced material held in the collection is a great asset, and the Museum is about to participate in an international research project into Carbon 14 dating as a result of its ability to provide objects with a precide archaeological and chronological context.

One additional strength of the museum, rather than the collection, is that for nearly 40 years the Egyptian collections have been supervised by curators specialising in Egyptian material culture. In addition to looking after the collections, curators have been able to share their expertise with visitors and act as informed advocates for the collection and the subject more generally; Bolton is a founder member of the Egyptology Curators’ SSN (subject specialist network).