Rethinking Ancient Egypt in the 21st Century Museum

Throughout the world, visitors to museums with Egyptian collections have traditionally been encouraged to marvel at the “mysteries” of this ancient civilization and to ogle at “mummies” lying in glass cases. Tour guides and visitors alike whisper about “the mummy’s curse” and other tropes that encourage a view of Egypt as exotic and even spooky. But today, in the 21st century, Egyptologists and museum professionals are grappling with the complex history of the collecting, commodification, and packaging of Egypt for museum audiences. How can we be more thoughtful in the ways we guide visitors to understand ancient Egypt and its people? How can we meaningfully incorporate narratives that address how and why Egyptian material – especially human remains – entered museum collections? Why is Egypt presented the way that it is, and how can we do better? What museum practices are changing, and why? This talk provides an overview of the issues facing Egyptian collections today, using a current project at the Getty Villa Museum as a case study. It aims to offer thought-provoking questions that you can bring with you on your next visit to a museum, hopefully prompting you to think about ancient Egypt in more nuanced ways.

Dr. Sara E. Cole is Associate Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Villa) in Los Angeles, California. She holds a PhD in ancient history from Yale University, where she also served as the graduate intern in ancient art at the Yale University Art Gallery from 2012-2014. Her research focuses on cross-cultural interactions in the art of Greco-Roman Egypt. Since joining the Getty in 2016, she has curated or co-curated multiple exhibitions featuring Egyptian, Nubian, Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Persian, and Thracian art, including the major international loan exhibition Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World (2018). She is Managing Curator of the Getty’s “Classical World in Context” initiative, which seeks to present the diversity and interconnectedness of the broader Mediterranean world through a series of exhibitions,
publications, and public programs.

Time and Location
2pm, Concordia University, Grimm Hall South, DeNault Auditorium