Student Volunteer Paulína Šútorová

Paulína Šútorová: My experience at the Egypt Centre

Paulína Šútorová has completed her BA and MA degrees in Egyptology at the Department of Arts and Humanities at Swansea University and is shortly to undertake a PhD.

“My love and fascination for the history of Ancient Egypt started at an early age, when during my holiday in Egypt I had the chance to see the most famous ancient treasures, which the country has to offer. By the time I graduated from high school, the chance to study Egyptology at university became the only logical solution to satisfy my growing passion for this subject, and that is how I ended up here at Swansea University.

            During my undergraduate studies in Egyptology I realised, that one thing is to study this subject in theory and another is to put all your knowledge into practice. For that reason, in my second year, I decided to join the Egypt Centre as a volunteer on the 8^th October 2014. From then on I mostly volunteered during Wednesdays and when my university duties allowed me to spend more time in the museum, I was always happy to come in whenever it was possible. From the two galleries, the House of Death became my home, my shelter, my “House of fun” (©Yuval), where I met many nice and sweet people both local and international. As I like to say, I found my second family here, who broadened my knowledge of Ancient Egypt even more not only by introducing me to the objects of both galleries, but also by training me in the three major activities of the Egypt Centre – the mummification, senet and material board.

            For more than three following years, I worked as a Gallery assistant. My main job was to greet visitors and to show them around the galleries. Furthermore, I assisted our Educational Leaders, mainly the Wonderful Roger Jones, whom I shadowed when he taught schools various lessons about Egypt. His hilarious jokes such as “Gudja, gudja” (Roger’s sacred words, which according to him should be recited by the sem-priest during the Opening of the mouth ritual) became popular and I also started to use these jokes now myself, when I demonstrate the activities. Together we started to be recognised as the “Dream team”.

            After finishing my Masters, I decided to apply for a PhD course here also due to the availability of the Egypt Centre, which has been my constant motivation to improve my academic knowledge and museum skills. Until my degree starts in October, I have taken up many opportunities, which the museum offered me in order to fill my free time. For example, gaining so many new contacts at the Egypt Centre brought me the opportunity to teach senior volunteers some basic hieroglyphs. Our weekly lessons made me practice my teaching skills and I am eternally proud and grateful to my amazing students for their serious on-going interest in my classes and for doing their homework without further comments. I also made a decision to catch up all the museum training and activities, which I have not managed before due to my university responsibilities. So far I have become a mentor for couple of new volunteers, where I have done their induction and showed them around the museum. Moreover, I have participated in creating entertaining and useful activities for the upcoming work placements of 14–15 year olds.  I also undertook several trainings of the activities, which are done in the shared area and in the House of Life, working with school groups who have visited the museum. I can honestly claim that I cannot wait what the Egypt Centre has in store for me next.”

  

My first week at the Egypt Centre/ Mi primera semana en al Centro Egipcio

Guest blog from Juan Dawber, MA student on placement from the Department of Languages, Translation and Communication at Swansea University.

I must say this first week at the Egypt Centre has been a great experience for me. I have met very nice friendly people and have been very happy with my internment choice. Since an early age I have been very interested in History despite the fact that my Master´s degree here in Swansea is in a different subject (MA Translation and Interpreting), so the opportunity presented to me of learning more about the History of Ancient Egypt has been most interesting as it is a subject to a large extent hitherto unknown to me. My only source of information had been films and things I had read in books, but that has been nothing compared to the detail I have learnt here.

My work colleagues have shown me all the objects and material on view to the public, the work involved such as checking that everything is in its correct place, especially the books, for example, and keeping everything neat and tidy and getting a general idea of where everything is in the Museum. 

They also showed me on the very first day the mummy Bob on which the mummification process was done by them a couple of times so as to have a general idea how was done, and this without taking into account the ones I have observed and looked after (studied) throughout the week. I also liked the Hall of Death on the lower floor very much where you can find everything related to the Gods, the religions, the tombs and the funeral rituals. All this latter being more related to the everyday activities through all the periods of Egyptian life; the dynasties, the scriptures, the war weaponry etc.

 I must say in general it has been a very positive experience for me and I would like to thank my colleagues in the museum for being so friendly and helpful. And with very special thanks to Syd for accepting me and letting me have the opportunity to work in the Museum.

TRANSLATION

    

MI PRIMERA SEMANA EN EL CENTRO EGIPCIO

Debo decir que mi primera experiencia en el Museo egipcio ha sido muy positiva, la gente y mis compañeros  todos muy agradables y una buena atmósfera de gente, por lo que estoy muy contento a día de hoy con este periodo de prácticas. A pesar de que el Máster que curso aquí es de Traducción e Interpretación, siempre me ha interesado la historia desde pequeño y aunque esto sea un campo algo distinto a lo que estoy estudiando en la universidad, me alegro de poder saber algo nuevo que es la historia del antiguo Egipto la cual es desconocida para mí. Lo único que he oído o visto sobre ese periodo histórico ha sido a través de películas, algunos libros y durante mi periodo de educación básica en el colegio, pero sin especificar de la manera como se hace aquí. Los compañeros del museo me han ayudado y también enseñado todo el material y los objetos expuestos al público, así como los chequeos que se van realizando durante el horario de trabajo donde nos aseguramos de que todo esté ordenado y en su sitio, como por ejemplo los libros, que todo esté limpio y una idea general de donde está todo.

El mismo día que empecé también me enseñaron el muñeco momia Bob en donde me  hicieron la demostración del proceso de momificación como un par de veces dos compañeros míos, sin contar tampoco las veces que tuve que ejercer de asistente a lo largo de la semana.

Me gustó mucho la Sala de la muerte, donde además de la momia Bob, se encuentra todo lo relacionado con la religión, dioses, lápidas, tumbas y rituales funerarios a los muertos. Después tenemos la Sala de la vida en el primer piso, en la que se encuentra todo lo relacionado con las actividades generales diarias a través de los distintos periodos en el antiguo Egipto, ya sean dinastías, escrituras, armas de guerra, artesanía etc.

En general esta primera semana ha sido una experiencia positiva para mí y me gustaría agradecer a mis compañeros por el apoyo y la ayuda recibida. Y en especial agradecer a Syd por darme la oportunidad de poder hacer mis prácticas aquí.

JUAN DAWBER

Guest Blog: Swansea University Heritage Skills Placement, Sean McGrevey

Sean with 3000 year old coffin of a lady musician

Starting from the 24^th May 2016, I’ve been involved in a work experience programme at the Egypt Centre, located in the Taliesin building on Swansea University’s Singleton Campus. The Centre operates as a learning facility for young children to come to, ranging from various ages and venturing from numerous primary schools across England and Wales. My work experience was part of a placement initially organised by the College of Arts and Humanities to give me a chance to work in the heritage sector and understanding the daily operations of a rather unique museum. Also, the placement is meant to give me a platform to pursue other heritage work in the coming years.

            On the ground, the Centre is run by a fairly small core set of staff compared to other larger museums, and then the galleries are largely shadowed and assisted by a large volunteer base. This allows as many people who would like to get involved in heritage work to get a taste of life in the field, and for those who volunteer their time consistently; this format allows working in teams that are never the same and meeting a large amount of people from different backgrounds and walks of life; which is largely rewarding. I have engaged in customer service, shadowing various activities, even conducting a mummification activity on my own.

            The galleries themselves are fascinating to me, as someone who has not studied Egyptology or any ancient civilisations in any depth. The various coffins, mummified animals and precious gemstones form parts of the Houses of Death and Life where the exhibits are held, allowing a contrasted insight into daily Egyptian life and evolving patterns over the various periods. For less intellectual heavy material aimed for younger audiences, the Centre offers a mummification activity for children to wrap their own (doll) mummy, and an enlarged board for the game of Senet, which is similar to the game of Snakes and Ladders. Whilst these two examples are fun for the children and allow them to be interactive, they serve as an accurate representation of things ancient Egyptians would do in their time period, following on from the educational aspects the Centre aims to provide.

            The main plus for the Centre, as stated at the beginning, is its unique nature. The Centre’s outreach to local schools and the wider community differentiates the Centre from larger national museums which often times let the reputations of the museum itself attract the visitors with little work. The Egypt Centre’s volunteers having exposure to working with children provides valuable experience for those who wish to go into teaching or other working environment with younger people.

            To conclude, the Egypt Centre’s charm is its laid back but professional atmosphere and its dedication to the education of young students with a keen interest to learn. The various workshops, gallery exhibits and games allow variety of what can be seen and what can be done, and over the course of the two weeks I have been a part of the Centre, there has not been a day where I have not learnt something new or discovered something previously missed. This is important to attempt to know what it will be like should I work in a national museum in the future; if I am discovering new things every day in a smaller museum, what will it be like in a larger, national museum? This is an exciting prospect, and I’m happy for the Egypt Centre to have given me this insight.

Sean McGrevey, MA in Modern History Student, Swansea University.

Plaster casts, class and art. CIPEG 2015.

We have a handling tray of real ancient artefacts (not masterpieces) for all visitors to enjoy at the Egypt Centre because we believe in the importance of handling the real thing (see the picture)

But have still been thinking about some of the things I learnt from CIPEG 2015. Something that came out time and time again was how in the early days of museums (what one might consider early varied from museum to museum), copies of masterpieces could be held to be more important than ‘second rate’ actual objects. Interesting and completely opposite to what I had hitherto believed. I always like the idea of the real object, even if grotty because of its magical contagion value. That’s why I got interested in ‘old things’ and ended up working in museums, because ‘old things’ are somehow linked directly to the past and can somehow transport you there. And of course, I have grown up in the modern western tradition with its emphasis on ‘authenticity’ (whatever that means). So, my take on plaster casts was that they may be beautiful but they are only real in so far as there post manufacture history is concerned. If they had value it was more to do with the recent past, perhaps as evidence for changes in what was considered important in Egyptology. Additionally, to be honest, I don’t know what masterpieces are. I believe others claim they have to be aesthetically beautiful and fairly rare? So a beautiful black-topped redware pot wouldn’t count as a masterpiece. What if it was an unusual shape?

But to return to the point, it seems that generally the real artefacts, even if common and ugly have gained more importance, particularly in the 20^th century. So how and why did things change? Well, I have read some interesting stuff by Alice Stevenson. It can be accessed here. She shows how the partage system and Petrie’s distribution of finds to museums meant that the ‘grotty’ items, typical of most archaeological excavations, became increasingly valued. At CIPEG 2015 we learnt from Alice Williams (an ex- Egypt Centre volunteer now doing her PhD at Oxford :-) ) about how Petrie’s exhibitions of items in London were so well attended. Maybe these exhibitions too helped show ‘the general public’ what real excavated remains were like, that they were rarely masterpieces of ‘art’, but nevertheless of value.  Additionally too, one may expect that the increase in the belief in the importance of ‘science’ and technology, also meant that everyday artefacts were more valued.

But, I am wondering if there could be a class element to all this?  Could it be that the masterpieces were more inclined to be valued by those well-educated, elite individuals with the necessary training, those brought up learning the classics and appreciating art?

One might argue that archaeology is associated with the non-elite, technology and archaeology; and classics with the elite and written text. Chris Stray has written on this. The growth in the importance of the everyday object, as opposed to the masterpiece, could also be bound up with increasing influence by the non-elite, less interested in aesthetics and more interested in technology? Perhaps it’s still so. There are different tribes in Egyptology. I wonder if the backgrounds to those interested in ‘art’ differ markedly from those interested in say, technology?

I am also thinking, should we make more use of our plaster casts? We only have a couple, but they are copies of famous things elsewhere. Should we use them in teaching? As CIPEG taught me, other museums do. Nika Lavrentyeva gave an excellent talk on the use of plaster casts in the Pushkin Museum. I’m not sure I feel so excited about copies as the real thing, but maybe that is a result of my background. 

Stray, C., 1998. Classics Transformed. Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830-1960. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Royal wine

And thank you again to Dulcie Engel, who led our handling session on ways of writing. This is one of the objects she chose and our volunteers got to actually touch it. Another item is featured here. We are doing a session in March for members of the public.

W960. Pottery neck of wine jar with hieratic inscription.

The inscription states that the wine came from a vineyard in the Western River and was bottled in the 12th year of the reign of the king. In 3 pieces. 27.5cm long. From Amarna.

The Western River is thought to be the Canopic branch of the Nile in the western Delta. Wine making in ancient Egypt dates back to at least the Early Dynastic Period. According to Plutarch it was the god Osiris who first taught the Egyptians to drink wine. The best wine came from the Delta region.

Most of the fragments of wine jars from Amarna were found in the Central Palace, though there a number of fragments also come from the Workmen’s Village. It has been suggested that the wine labels found in the Workmen’s Village show that vessels were reused for other purposes. Wine labels are important for dating the site of Amarna. Year 17 is the latest attested date of label.

This seems to read:

HAt-sp 12                                              year 12

irp (nDm) n pr.....                                 wine (sweet) of the house [i.e. estate]....

n itrw imnty Hri KAmw             of the Western River, vineyard supervisor....

Further Reading.

Murray, M.A. 2000. Viticulture and Wine Production in Nicholson, P.T. and Shaw, I. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge University Press.

Wahlberg, E-L. 2012. The Wine Jars Speak. A Text Study. University of Uppsala (online- http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:528049/FULLTEXT01.pdf).

Something I don’t know much about: Predynastic Pottery

Egypt Centre’s volunteer documentation assistants have just started audit checking a group of material from Armant. I have briefly blogged about it here, but I didn't explain how beautiful some of the pieces really are. Before I tell you about the Armant stuff, and particularly the pottery, a quick thank you to the volunteer documentation assistants, Richard, Olivia, Charlotte, Jessica and Lisa. They have been checking that the items in our store match the computer records, making sure they are photographed and not falling apart and adding information to the database!  While carrying out this they are learning a bit about museum documentation and are becoming adept at using the Modes Complete database. While most are Egyptology students, one is not.

Back to the Armant stuff. The pieces are all from the excavations cemeteries and settlement sites 1600-1900 which haven’t been published. We have possibly the most northern ‘Nubian’ A-group pottery in Egypt here in Swansea. The Armant material is largely Badarian (c.5500-4000 BC), A-group (c.3500-3000 BC) and includes the mysterious Saharan sherds. Some of the Badarian pieces are particularly amazing to look at. Granted, as this is real excavated and very old material, most of the pieces are fragmentary, but they are just soooooo fine.

The piece above (AR50/3257) is on display. It is Badarian black-topped polished brown ware, a precursor to the later Naqada black-topped red ware. The walls are finer than those of the later stuff. The thickness of the walls is all the more amazing as the piece, like of its date, is coil made. That is a long snake-shape is made (a coil) which is then twisted into a pot shape and smoothed down. The piece shines slightly as it has been polished by rubbing with a smooth stone. Egyptologists argue about how the black top was achieved but it was generally thought that it was placed upside down in the kiln, into the smouldering ashes. The piece in this photograph has been mended in antiquity showing that it must have been considered important to the Egyptians.

And here is a piece (503243) from Armant which has been decorated by impressing with a pointed instrument and then the holes filled with a white pigment. It was categorised by the excavators as A-group, though I am aware that some later Nubian pottery (C-group, 2300-1500 BC) as well as Petrie’s N-ware, also has this white pigment decoration. This, and other pieces have a dark brown, reddish fabric, which is like Petrie’s N-ware. N-ware, is generally believed to derive from Nubia. Unfortunately, I am not an expert on this so, if anyone has any thoughts I would be glad to hear. Whether, A, or C-group, this type of decoration is strongly reminiscent of Nubian wares. The other items found with the same grave context are largely fragments of finely made stone vessels, which would suggest, if Egyptian, an Early Dynastic date. There’s a good discussion on Petrie’s N-ware, with references, in Jane Roy’s, 2011. The Politics of Trade: Egypt and Lower Nubia in the 4th Millennium BC, 259-262.

If you want to know more about adult volunteering at the Egypt Centre click here.

All Good Wishes for the Year of the Snake

This Sunday is Chinese New Year- the Year of the snake. And this afternoon our Egypt Centre volunteers are looking at the relationship between animals and gods in ancient Egypt. Of course we will have to include something snakey. Snakes were not all bad at all but were also symbols of rebirth and protection.

I am resisting the temptation to talk only about how flint knives were considered an appropriate weapon to ward of snakes or how the snake on the mountain of Bakhu had his front half made of flint.

We will, however, look at this fine snakey pair on the left- a large stone fragment depictig Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathadaimon, guarantors of royal power and protection of the land.

And more snakey items (information on link here).

Wishing you all a great New Year with snakey revival and protection!

 

SPARKLING Egypt Centre

The Egypt Centre (Rosie Freeman and Jayne Holly-Wait) attended Swansea's first ever SPARKLE event on Saturday. Swansea SPARKLE is a transgender and public integration day. We shared a stall with the National Waterfront Museum and talked to people about identity in ancient Egypt, we also had some examples of items used to make make-up and other beauty products for people to smell and feel. Hopefully we've encouraged people to visit the museum and even volunteer!

Greyhounds and Welsh Museums: Federation AGM

Shame on me, but it is a while since I attended a meeting of the Welsh Federation of Museums and Galleries in Wales. However, I actually did so yesterday.

The meeting was held at Wrexham Museum. I was really envious of their central town location, their great displays, and especially of the fact that they have a logo with two greyhounds (having a softspot for greyhounds myself). Apparently the dogs are the famous Acton Park hounds.

We heard about the work of the Federation. They do a lot more than just distribute grants! For example an advocacy toolkit has been produced. I was really interested in Jane Henderson's talk on the Distributed National Collection. The National Collection is defined as that which is particularly important to the people of Wales. They have recently carried out a research on doll collections distributed throughout the Principality. They can say a lot about changes in Welsh National costume, among other things. Natural Science is planned next.

In the afternoon, I gave a quick talk on our getting our collections online. Wont say much about this as the link gives more information.

Pat West told us about the Llyn Cerrig Bach Partnership with the National Museum of Wales. Both Anglesy Council and the National Museum deserve a lot of praise for this project. For those of you who don't know, Llyn Cerrig Bach is a hoard of Iron Age (Celtic) artefacts which were discovered in the 1940s. They include a gang chain, a piece of a cauldron, a sickle, etc. The items have been kept for much of their time since their 1940s discovery, in Cardiff, but are now on display in Anglesy.

Eleri Farley told us all about volunteering at Wrexham Museum. It was interesting to hear how other museums do things. Eleri told us that they limit their volunteers to 30 so that they can ensure that the volunteer manager has a good personal relationship with all the volunteers. This is different from Egypt Centre where we need many more volunteers to run our programmes, but I did think it was a good point. Like Egypt Centre, they also see their volunteers as an important link with the community and they have a structured induction process and volunteer roles. Wrexham Museum Service volunteer programme is the first in Wales to achieve the Investors in Volunteers award. Well done to them, and from what Eleri said it is much deserved.

Finally, we had a tour of the galleries. I really liked the way the display was set out, making a lot of use of a limited space. And, I thought the 'Smelly Old Wrexham' interactive was great fun. They have a trail of Wrexham on a panel, and a dog character is shown going around the town sniffing out the different sites. You can lift small panels on the interactive to smell the smells that might interest the dog.

So thank you to the Federation and to Wrexham Museum. I also had a very nice lunch!

John Brumfitt Library

Yet another reason the volunteer at the Egypt Centre! The John Brumfitt Library. Volunteers (active volunteers who have done more than 20hours) can now borrow Egyptology books from the Egypt Centre.

John was a volunteer at the Egypt Centre from 2000 and sadly died earlier this year. This is him helping us when we borrowed part of the Rhind Mathematical Papyri from the British Museum.  His family have kindly allowed Egypt Centre to use his book collection as the core of a volunteer lending library. Altogether there are about 400 books but at the moment only a few have been catalogued and are available for borrowing. The few available include:

Allen, J. 2000 Middle Egyptian: an introduction to the language and culture of hieroglyphs.

Brier, B. 1998 The Murder of Tutankhamen: a 3,000 year old murder mystery.

Faulkner, R.O. 1962. A Concise dictionary of Middle Egyptian.

Horning, E. 1999. Akhenaten and the Religion of Light.

Grajetzki, W. 2003 Burial customs in Ancient Egypt: life in death for rich and poor.

Martin, G.T. 1991. The Hidden tombs of Memphis: new discoveries from the time of Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great.

Morkot, R.G. 2000 The Black pharaohs : Egypt's Nubian rulers

Nunn, J.F. 1996. Ancient Egyptian Medicine.

Reeves, N. 1996. The Complete Valley of the Kings: tombs and treasures of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

Shaw, I. (ed) 2000. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.

Taylor, J.H. 2001. Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt

Wilson, H. People of the pharaohs: from peasant to courtier.

A message from another ex-volunteer, Sally Fung

  

This summer’s Olympic Games were such a success thanks in a large part to thousands of people who gave up their time and volunteered to do all manner of jobs. The volunteers that I saw in London were brilliant and they really made sure everyone had a wonderful time.  I’m sure that they made many friends and learned a few new skills. What have the Olympic Games to do with the Egypt Centre I can hear you ask? The answer is, they both need volunteers.

The Egypt Centre runs a well organised volunteer programme of which I was lucky enough to be a part of. I hadn’t worked for eight years as I had been a stay-at-home mum and I needed to get back to at least part time, if not full time work. Unfortunately being off work for such a long time had left me very unconfident. I also did not have any recent references I could put down if I applied for work and no recent experience.  I was looking for volunteering opportunities and through County of Swansea’s, Swansea Council Volunteer Service, I found that the Egypt Centre needed people. 

I started in March 2010 as an Education Assistant. I didn’t know anything about ancient Egypt when I started, nor had I had much experience at working with school parties, but I had support from the staff, both paid and other volunteers, and I soon began to feel my confidence return, so much so I trained as an Educational Leader.  With the training, the different Master Classes and my own study I soon learned new skills, such as dealing with groups of people of various ages, talking to people about the Collection, making resources, and developing a passion for ancient history, as well as having a lot of fun and making very good friends. I went on to help and then lead the holiday workshops for children. It was through my volunteering with the Egypt Centre that I decided I would like to retrain and do educational work with children. I studied at FE College and attained a Diploma in Teaching Assistant work. This summer I applied for a job in a Primary school as a Teaching Assistant and thanks to my volunteering at the Egypt Centre, and the help I received from the staff, I am now fully employed in a school as a Teaching Assistant helping children who struggle with Literacy and Numeracy.  It is a job that I love doing. 

So if you can give up a few hours a week to volunteer I would encourage you to do so. You could learn valuable transferrable skills that employers are looking for, experience at working in the Heritage/Education Sector, and make some really good friends.  I am so glad that I took the time and volunteered.

If you want to know more about adult volunteering at the Egypt Centre click here.

Sandra Hawkins: We are so proud of you

Sandra Hawkins from Mayhill in Swansea, started volunteering at the Egypt Centre in March 2000. She had come to us through Job Force Wales . After 5 years of unemployment and no qualifications, Sandra had very little confidence and needed a placement to help her back into the routine of work. She came for an interview with us with her project officer and was extremely shy and reluctant to answer questions. However, we soon saw her blossom at the Egypt Centre. From beginning as someone who was extremely unwilling to talk to anyone (even us!), Sandra was soon able to give presentations to children, school teachers and all manner of Egypt Centre visitors. She became events officer for our Friends Group and since 2001 has been employed as a part-time workshop assistant. She has become a valuable member of our team. 

Sandra attends all training sessions on a variety of subjects both Egyptological and aspects of dealing with children and vulnerable adults.  She has also attended  computer science, maths, etc. outside of the museum environment.

Recently Sandra has been studying especially hard evenings and weekends and on days when she wasn’t volunteering or working with us. Last Monday (16^th July) she graduated with a degree in Humanities with DACE (Swansea University’s Department of Adult and Continuing Education). Her attitude to learning has been transformed and so has her life. 

While we are proud of all our volunteers, Sandra’s achievement is exceptional. Well done. We just wish we could give her a special degree!

Wendy, Jayne, Carolyn, Ashleigh, Ros.

If you want to know more about adult volunteering at the Egypt Centre click here.

Young Egyptologists: Summer Workshops

It's that time again. Wendy has been extremely busy working with our workshop leader Hannah Frost on the children's workshops for this summer. Hannah is a volunteer at the Egypt Centre as well as being a trained school teacher.

So if you have a child aged 6 to 10 years who is interested in things ancient, book quickly. Several places have already gone.

If you want the details, this is the link:

http://egypt.swan.ac.uk/index.php/holiday-workshops/511-summer-holiday-workshops-2012

Want to get into museums? Volunteer. One volunteer's success story.

Guest Post by Cat Lumb

Secondary and Post-16 Co-ordinator (Humanities)

Manchester Museum

University of Manchester

When I first started volunteering at The Egypt Centre I was nineteen years old. It was the first year of my Egyptology and Anthropology degree and I’d just been reliably informed that jobs linked to the field of Egyptology were rare to come by, especially in the UK. Ten years have passed and in that time I’ve designed, developed and delivered two OCR ‘Introduction to Egyptology’ courses for Adult Education and found a position I adore with The Manchester Museum within the Learning and Engagement Team as their Secondary Humanities Co-ordinator. Without the valuable experience I gained from volunteering at The Egypt Centre I don’t think I would have had the confidence or the appropriate understanding in order to be successful in either job.

Volunteering for a smaller museum, like The Egypt Centre, provides an excellent foundation for anyone wanting to experience working in the cultural sector. While the operation as a whole may appear diminutive in comparison to the major workings of a larger institution like The British Museum, the service they provide is still very real for their visitors. The primary school children that attend The Egypt Centre to learn about mummification and the great Egyptian Empire will recall such an experience for a lifetime – they don’t care if The Egypt Centre has several galleries or if there is only one: what matters is the contact they have with those who represent the experience,  and for The Egypt Centre this is their volunteers.

During my interview for my position at The Manchester Museum my experience of volunteering at The Egypt Centre allowed me to talk about issues of conservation, the importance of public engagement and the rewards of giving a young mind the opportunity to learn within a museum environment. I had direct, practical experience to draw from and concrete examples of success to demonstrate my skills with. Yes, I could have gotten similar examples from any number of different volunteer programmes within much larger cultural institutions, but the joy of volunteering for The Egypt Centre was the distinct camaraderie between the few members of staff and the wealth and diversity of the volunteers there.

As a volunteer I felt I was an integral part of the fantastic work that was going on there – rather than just another face at another venue. There were multiple opportunities to get involved in a myriad of museum-related areas: from learning about responsible object-handling - the value of ‘real’ vs replica’ items - to understanding the type of experience and information individual visitors are looking for during their time within the galleries. I was able to apply the correct level of professional knowledge during my application and interview with The Manchester Museum that proved I understood the significance such experience had brought me.

All volunteer programmes are different. But I believe that the most valuable experiences can often be within those smaller, less well-known, intuitions that offer a service to their local community. In this way the experience of the volunteer is much broader, more personal and potentially a lot more rewarding than it might be in the corporate environment of a larger, business-focused environment where a volunteer is one of many.  I certainly wouldn’t change my three years experience as a volunteer for The Egypt Centre for anything: it gave me a significant insight and a keen understanding of the key relationship all museums depend on – the engagement between the objects and the visitor. Nowhere is this more evident than in those smaller, focused galleries of local museums such as The Egypt Centre.

Information on volunteering at the Egypt Centre

A Degree in Egyptology for Children!

A Degree In Egyptology, for Children!

This morning Wendy (assistant curator), Ros (museum assistant) and Ashleigh (volunteer manager) are off to the annual award ceremony for Children’s University and I am left holding the fort. Hopefully our volunteers will be getting lots of awards.

For many years now the Egypt Centre has been running a volunteer programme for children (started by Wendy Goodridge). In 2005 Wendy, and the then volunteer manager, Stuart Williams, came back from a meeting in England (as far as I remember) about a wonderful project called ‘Children’s University’. Children were accredited for voluntary work, not just in museums but also church groups, dance groups, in fact any out-of -chool activities. Could they do the same in the Egypt Centre? To be honest I was a bit worried about the workload, but they talked me round. After all, they said, many of the modules were already set up, we could offer a whole degree in Egyptology for kids.

Wendy contacted the Local Education Authority and told them about the wonderful plan. Children’s University Swansea was born. It is part of Children’s University Wales. Children’s University in Wales awards credits to children and young people from the age of 5 to 19 who attend activities outside normal school hours.  The awards are based on the amount of time young people spend on each activity and the activities can range from football to heritage work.

At the Egypt Centre we have devised a programme of modules that cover themes such as Egyptian history, architecture, customer care, health and safety, preventative conservation and material culture.  These are for our young volunteers. Wendy has also extended the project to cover our summer workshops and also our Saturday workshops for disadvantaged children.

Several years on we have lots of modules and lots of levels. The young people that we have taking part on the project come from the local community and many of them come from disadvantaged backgrounds, many have learning difficulties, but others come from ‘typical middleclass’ backgrounds (whatever that means) with families giving lots of support and help.

So I am expecting ‘the gang’ to come back from the award ceremony hoarse with cheering our youngsters!

If you want to know more about Children’s University Swansea, here is the link.

10th anniversary celebrations of Young Egyptologists Workshops - Wendy organising celebrations!

Wendy Goodridge has been very busy organising the celebrations for a whole 10 years of Egypt Centre Young Egyptologists Workshops. It was Wendy's aim to make sure that we targetted all groups and these workshops were specifically for Community First Areas. Children learnt literacy and numeracy but more importantly were given greater confidence through the fun, Egypt related activities such as practising embalming on our dummy mummy, playing the ancient game of Senet and handling real ancient Egyptian objects. And how successful they have been. They were even instrumental in the Egypt Centre being runner up in the widening participation section of the Times Higher Education Annual Awards (though we think we should have won!).

You can find out more about the workshops here:
http://www.egypt.swan.ac.uk/index.php/out-of-school-hours-learning/385-young-egyptologist-workshop

And, if you would like to come along to the celebrations let Wendy know.

Our wonderful volunteers

Last week, there was lots going on re. Egypt Centre's wonderful volunteers. First of all St Fagans came to chat to us about our volunteer programmes- they are going to develop theirs. Ashleigh, our volunteer manager, gave them lots of information and documentation. Then later in the week, the Evening Post did a bit on something Ashleigh and the volunteers had been looking at. You can see it here: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Ancient-bracelet-riddle/story-13118385-detail/story.html. Unfortunately, not only is it a weird photo but the press failed to say you can see the object the volunteers were looking at by coming to the Centre. Then at the end of the week a kind visitor had given some great feedback on how wonderful our vols. are.

Our volunteers are truly diverse but all work together, which is one of the reasons we are so proud of them. They range from age 10 to 80+, they are all abilities and all sorts of what today might be called 'socio-economic groups'. They do lots of things, though mainly they show the visitors round our galleries, help with enquiries and also deliver activities to school parties.

Basically, I just wanted to say, they are wonderful!

Philip Green and other volunteers

Today has been a good day for volunteering at the Centre.

Just to let all know, today is Philip Green's last day volunteering at the Egypt Centre. Philip has been with us for one and a half years and has been an absolute godsend. he has not only helped with school parties, moved objects and helped with last year's conference, but he has also been doing tons of administrative work for us. We will be really sad to see him go but he is moving on to better things so we should be pleased for him. He will be working at the House of Commons.

Secondly, this afternoon two visitors came and told Jayne (museum assistant) how fantastic and attentive all our vols. had been. They really are a marvelous group.

This is also a second week for some new 'volunteers'. We have three students from Kasia Szpakowska's class at Swansea University with us. They have been here as part of a module, learning a bit about how museums work. Hopefully it will help them decide whether or not they want to continue with it as a career. Today they have been working on a marketing project, and among other things have set Egypt Centre up with a twitter account. So, thanks to them you can follow our tweets: http://twitter.com/#!/TheEgyptCentre