A is for Alphabets

The Sun Lounge has recently become home to some new displays! They are part of a series of changing displays that will explore the weird and wonderful objects in our collection by going through the letters of the alphabet. As the displays move through the various letters of the alphabet, more and more unusual objects will come out of storage and into the cases.

The Alphabets display, currently in the Sun Lounge

The first case, ‘A is for Alphabets’, looks at how different alphabets and writing systems have been used throughout history. Each of the objects shows different writing systems, including Latin, Arabic, Chinese, cuneiform, and hieroglyphs.

Not all of the writing systems displayed here are technically alphabets! Cuneiform, hieroglyphs and Chinese are not ‘true’ alphabets. These were developed earlier and the symbols represent parts of words, or whole words, as opposed to single sounds. Latin and Arabic are the only ‘true’ alphabets displayed as each symbol represents a single sound.

The case shows that writing has been used for similar purposes in different cultures and time periods.  The objects on display include a Roman curse tablet, a number of Chinese coins, a cuneiform tablet and cone, and a bank note. The artefacts broadly fall into 4 categories; trade, religion, organisation, and food and drink. 

Egyptian shabtis

My favourite objects are the two shabtis. These ancient Egyptian figurines represent agricultural workers who would serve the deceased in the afterlife. The hieroglyphs on the front are typically from the Book of the Dead. The Book was made up of spells to help the deceased navigate the underworld.

Alphabets and writing systems give us a fascinating insight into different civilisations throughout time and across the world. I really enjoyed putting together this display. Pop into the Sun Lounge to see this display and keep an eye out for the next installation; the letter B!

Alex

Collections Volunteer

Civilisations: Ancient Egyptian Afterlife

Continuing with our theme of Civilisations, I put together a handling table of Ancient Egyptian objects in our collection for the event day.

The theme of my table was the Ancient Egyptians’ belief in the afterlife, represented through funerary objects in the collection. The Ancient Egyptians believed that when someone died, their individual journey did not end but was merely transported from the earthly plane to the eternal plane.

This shabti is from Luxor. It is made from limestone and incised with text from Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead. It is from the tomb of Djhuthirmaktuf (meaning ‘Thoth is his protection’)

One of my favourite objects I used was the shabti figurine. As the Ancient Egyptians believed that the afterlife was a mirror image of their normal life, it was thought that they would still be called upon to do manual labour for the gods. Shabtis were intended to act as servants or minions for the deceased and it was believed the shabtis would magically come to life and do manual labour in their stead! They are often called ‘answerers’ as they carried inscriptions asserting their readiness to answer the gods’ summons to work.

Translation of Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead

Also in our collection, we have some small amulets, which often depicted deities and were believed to have protective and regenerative powers.

In Ancient Egypt, frogs were associated with Heqet who was the goddess of fertility. Every year when the river Nile would flood, thousands of frogs were born and the land would be incredibly fertile, which is where this link between frogs and fertility originates. These amulets would be placed in tombs as it was believed Heqet helped with the rebirth after dead.

This amulet is a representation of Heqet, the goddess of fertility

Also in the collection are small Osiris figurines. Osiris was well known as the god of the afterlife and resurrection, and was a key figure in the lives of the Ancient Egyptian people. He was killed by his brother Seth but brought back to life by his sister (and wife!) Isis. Osiris figurines were placed with the deceased in the belief that they would help to resurrect the dead in the afterlife.

Osiris is often depicted with a deep black beard and green skin, which symbolises the fertile soils of the river Nile.

I had so much fun researching and presenting my table during the Civilisations Festival and I think it was a great way to bring out objects from the collection that aren’t on display!

Dulcie

Collections Intern

Let's 'Brooch' the Subject!

Everyone likes a bit of sparkle and the Romans were no exception! This week I had my Jewellery Handling table at the Roman Baths. I displayed some pieces from the Roman Baths collection and replicas along side them to show what the jewellery would have looked like originally. If you came along, I hope you liked it!

I also included a few images of the Fayum death portraits (Fayum is an area in Egypt!). These are likenesses of the deceased when they were young, that were painted onto the linen wrappings of mummies and date back to the period when Romans occupied Egypt.

My favourite Fayum death portrait

Here’s my favourite one of the death portraits because she’s modelling the fashionable mono-brow of the time, where ladies actually filled in their eyebrows to create a mono-brow for the sake of beauty. How times change!

The subjects of the Fayum death portraits, all seem to be dripping in gold. However, Jewellery wasn’t just for the mega rich. Not only gold and silver were used but also bronze, iron, bone, glass (for beads), enamel and much more! 

Snake bangle on display at The Roman Baths

Snakes were a very popular image to have on jewellery and were worn as arm bands, bracelets, necklaces and rings. It was only when Christianity came in when snakes were connected with evil (in the Bible when the devil tempted Eve, in the form of a snake, in the garden of Eden). Before then snakes were thought highly of in the Roman Empire, being thought have healing powers. Snakes were also associated with several gods and goddesses in the Roman Religion, with some deities even depicted in snake form.

Me choosing pieces from The Roman Baths collection

Looking at the pieces I picked from the collection, the replicas and the fayum death portraits it really shows that jewellery really hasn't changed that much! If you look for it, Roman-style jewellery can be found everywhere on the high street. Shopping time!
 

Look out for the next handling table! It's free and there's no need to book, not to mention it's an opportunity to see objects from The Roman Baths collection that aren't normally displayed to the public! See you there!
Emma

Tuesday Time Tables - Egyptian life.....

One of the increasingly rare warm summer days heralded the beginning of our Tuesday Time Table series. This year I was first up with our Egyptian collection.

But hold on, this is the Roman Baths isn’t it? Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean we’re only allowed to keep Roman items does it? Actually the collection here includes a whole variety of non-Roman material - the Egyptian collection was donated to us by a  local collector, so that’s why it’s here.

The collection consists of a series of shabti, a scarab which may have been part of a necklace, three exquisitely carved amulets, a string of beads and two figurines of Osiris all of which were on display.

Personally, my absolute favourite piece was an alabaster jar which may have been used as a perfume bottle or for holding hair oil, certainly for some type of cosmetic. For me, a piece like this really highlights the everyday lives of the ancient Egyptians which is really what I wanted to examine with my table.

Me with the Alabaster ointment jar.

Mostly I wanted to challenge the misconception that the Egyptians were all about death and burial; they weren’t, and, news flash, slaves didn’t build the pyramids either.

Having said that it’s easy to see how the misconception arises. As my professor once said ‘Most of what we have from ancient Egypt is comprised of tombs, temples and trash’. Based on the worthless nature of one and the religious nature of the other two it’s easy to reconstruct their society as overly religious or death obsessed.

But that isn’t necessarily correct.

And I’m sure several people are now wondering who did build the pyramids. Well, it wasn’t slaves, that’s for certain. The building of the kings’ tomb was an important and prestigious job, far too important to entrust to the likes of slaves and in fact, when compared to Greek and Roman societies there were hardly any slaves in Egypt at all.

The pyramids were probably built by the foremost builders of the day, supplemented by the common folk (for heavy lifting purposes) during lulls in agricultural work. Just to be clear this wasn’t slavery. All agricultural work leaves a natural lull while the fields recover and for the ancient Egyptians this went hand in hand with a down turn in profit. So why not use the time to get paid to build the kings tomb? That way you could still afford to buy expensive perfume to place in your alabaster ointment jar which sat on your vanity table.

Me and my table.

Emma P.

Ancient Egyptian Time Table

As part of the Tuesday Time Tables at the Roman Baths, I chose to do my Time Table on the Ancient Egyptians, as I love Egyptian history. It was also a good opportunity to get objects out of the collections which the public rarely see. My theme was religion as it was an integral part of Egyptian culture and belief. Egyptian religion is complicated but it is better understood by looking at objects connected with it.

Most of the jewellery worn by the Ancient Egyptians would have acted as amulets to offer protection to their wearers. They often depicted gods or specific animals associated with gods, such as the three I used showing a frog, a baboon and Shu (the god of air).

One such piece is a beautiful scarab beetle. Scarabs are one of the more iconic symbols of ancient Egypt, and were often used in jewellery and decoration. They symbolised the god Khepri, who rolled the sun across the sky every day.

Scarab Beetle

As time went on, ‘shabtis’ (funerary figurines), became a common part of burials. Shabtis were servant figures that carried out the tasks required of the deceased in the underworld. They are commonly found in museum collections, but have you ever asked why they are so common? Perhaps it is due to their size which makes them both portable and beautiful? I have always been particularly fond of shabtis simply because I liked the idea of having little people come to life to help me out in the afterlife! Of the two shabtis displayed, my favourite was made of limestone. This object was my favourite because it was beautifully painted.

I also chose to display a copper alloy Osiris figurine. Osiris was the God of the afterlife and is one of the better known gods in the Egyptian pantheon. Figurines of the gods could often be found in household shrines or burials in Ancient Egypt.


For more information on objects from the Eygyptian collection please follow this link…

‎http://www.facebook.com/TheRomanBaths#!/media/set/?set=a.204898112888207.55841.123557411022278&type=1    

ACCES to Egypt

If I were to ask you what sort of items we have in our collection here, I reckon the first thing you would mention would be Roman things. What else would the Roman Baths Museum have? Well our collection spans a much bigger time period than that. It actually runs right up to the present day! I’m also pretty certain you wouldn’t guess that we have a small collection of Egyptian artefacts.

Winged Scarab

Yeah, it came as quite a surprise to me, too! So how did I come to discover this little collection? Did I just open a random box, look inside and find it in a rather Indiana Jones like fashion? Not so much…

Shabti

You see I was helping respond to an enquiry from the Association of Curators for Collections from Egypt and Sudan (ACCES). ACCES have recently re-vamped their website and, as part of this, have created a Facebook page which features a gallery of highlights from museum collections. This gallery includes images and captions from museum collections.

Limestone Shabti

And, since the Baths works very hard to raise the profile of all of our collection, naturally we took part in this. So James took the photographs while I researched and wrote the captions. Not the most exciting way to discover something, I’ll admit, but still enjoyable!

I suppose you are wondering how the Roman Baths Museum came to own a collection of Egyptian artefacts? Well, artefacts from Egypt have always been popular with private collectors and a long time ago this collection was donated to the Victoria Art Gallery, who, in 1982, transferred the collection to the Baths.

In general, I’m not that interested in Egyptian archaeology, but I still find this collection to be rather exciting. Of the five artefacts we have highlighted from our collection, my favourite is a model of a winged scarab. It is most likely to be an amulet (scarabs were popular motifs for amulets) and I find it adorable! While it may be very simply constructed (just three pieces, tied together with string), and has no glitzy gold or gems, I love it. I think it’s quite sweet really.

Are you interested in seeing what other pieces we have highlighted? Then why don’t you check out the ACCES Facebook page?

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/media/set/?set=a.204898112888207.55841.123557411022278

Charlotte