Search Constraints
Search Results
-
Presentation
Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage
Join us to hear about the project ‘Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage: Views from Egypt’ from our visiting Egyptian collaborators, researcher Heba Abd el Gawad and webcomic artist Mohammed Nasser, in conversation with curator Margaret Maitland.Maitland, Margaret
museum, storytelling, Egyptian archaeology, Egyptian heritage, comics, and Decolonization
-
2023
Magazine article
'The 'Qurna Queen' In: Herstory - women who changed the world
To mark Women's History Month, female curators at National Museums Scotland have each selected an inspiration woman represented in the collection. From entomologist to artist to queen, their legacy lives on.Maitland, Margaret
Archaeology, Women's History Month, Nubia, gold jewellery, gilded coffin, Excavations in Egypt, and Qurna Queen
-
2022
Podcast
African Queen: how an intact royal burial from Egypt reveals new insights into cultural connections
On this episode of The PastCast, Margaret Maitland – Principal Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean at National Museums Scotland – explains why recent analyses of the objects are offering new perspectives on Egypt’s relationship with its southern neighbour, Nubia, in what is now northern Sudan and the southernmost area of...Henderson, Calum ; Maitland, Margaret
-
2022
Blog post
Confronting 200 years of Egyptological histories and legacies
2022 is a landmark year in Egyptology. It’s been 200 years since the decipherment of hieroglyphs, which unlocked access to written sources from ancient Egypt, and 100 years since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, whose splendour further fuelled global Egyptomania. Many have celebrated these milestones, but it is...Maitland, Margaret
-
2022
Journal article
African Queen: an intact royal burial from Egypt reveals new insights into cultural connections
The identity of the ancient Egyptian ‘Qurna Queen’ remains a mystery over 100 years after the excavation of her intact burial. However, new research on her burial assemblage is revealing historic biases in interpretation and shedding light on Egypt’s place within African culture, as Margaret Maitland explains.Maitland, Margaret
-
Conference paper (unpublished)
Confronting colonial histories and legacies in Egyptian and Sudanese collections at National Museums Scotland
Maitland, Margaret
-
Lecture
Ancient African Queens: New perspectives on Black history
Join our panel as they discuss how reassessing 19th and 20th century colonial attitudes can bring new perspectives to fascinating aspects of ancient Egyptian culture and its place in African history.Maitland, Margaret ; Ashby, Solange
-
2022
Book chapter
The King and I: Commemorating the privilege of royal statue dedication in Ramesside Deir El-Medina
It is generally understood that in ancient Egyptian statuary, “a private person is never sculpted together with the king”. However, an unusual small limestone statue in the collections of National Museums Scotland contradicts this understanding, depicting a man kneeling to offer a statue of a king (NMS A.1956.139). Clearly Ramesside...Maitland, Margaret
-
2022
Book chapter
The burial of the “Qurna Queen”
The personal adornments and objects from the burial of Queen Ahhotep belong to one of the most spectacular finds from Ancient Egypt. The history of their discovery is still a mystery. Even the identity of the queen is not fully solved. The twelve essays in this volume tackle different problems...Maitland, Margaret ; Potter, Daniel M ; Troalen, Lore
-
2022
Book chapter
A re-discovered early Roman-era mummy shroud from the Rhind tomb at Thebes
The first Science for Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technologies conference was held under the auspices of His Excellency Pr. Khaled el-Enany at the Manial Palace Museum in Cairo, from 4 to 6 November 2017. Its aim was to provide a venue at which specialists in the application of physical and...Maitland, Margaret ; Ross, Jennifer ; Troalen, Lore
-
2022
Book chapter
The goldworking of Riqqa, Egypt: Analysis and comparison between the 12th and 18th dynasties, in Quiles
The first Science for Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technologies conference was held under the auspices of His Excellency Pr. Khaled el-Enany at the Manial Palace Museum in Cairo, from 4 to 6 November 2017. Its aim was to provide a venue at which specialists in the application of physical and...Troalen, Lore ; Guerra, Maria Filomena ; Maitland, Margaret ; Ponting, Matthew ; Price, Campbell
-
2022
Blog post
An elite education: discovery of an ancient Athenian ephebic list
A stone monument with an ancient Greek inscription in the collections of National Museums Scotland was recently discovered to be a previously unknown, unpublished Athenian ephebic list. Principal Curator Margaret Maitland and the Attic Inscriptions in UK Collections project team explain the significance of this find, and what it tells...Maitland, Margaret
World Cultures, Archaeology , Ancient Greece , and Research
-
2021
Journal article
Rediscovering Ancient Egypt: consideration of the legacy, ethics and aesthetics of previously restored Egyptian artefacts
National Museums Scotland’s (NMS) new permanent Ancient Egypt gallery project at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh gave an opportunity for current conservators and curators to collaboratively assess and evaluate historic conservation and restoration treatments. Restoration had been an integral element in transforming archaeological fragments from Egypt into museum...Stable, Charles ; Maitland, Margaret ; De Bellaigue, Diana ; Potter, Daniel ; Bryan, Bethan …
ethics, intervention, Egyptology, and history of conservation
-
Conference paper (unpublished)
Expert investigators: Uncovering unacknowledged Egyptian contributions to archaeology in 19th century archives
Narratives about early Egyptology have typically been framed in terms of the heroic efforts of adventurous collectors and brilliant scholars, few of whom acknowledged the debt owed to the Egyptians upon whose local knowledge and labour they relied. However, the innovative Scottish archaeologist Alexander Henry Rhind (1833–1863), in summarizing the...Maitland, Margaret
-
Conference paper (unpublished)
Egyptian-Nubian Cultural Connections: Reconsidering the Qurna Burial Group at National Museums Scotland
Maitland, Margaret
-
2021
Blog post
Hieroglyphs from the North: Newcastle and Jean-François Champollion
On the 27th of September 1822, a young scholar delivered a paper just eight pages long and rather unassumingly titled ‘Letter to Monsieur Dacier’, but which would completely change the world’s understanding of ancient history. The scholar was Jean-François Champollion and his paper was the first truly significant breakthrough in...Maitland, Margaret
-
Journal article
Analytical study of the Middle Kingdom group of gold jewellery from tomb 124 at Riqqa, Egypt
The jewellery from tomb 124 at Riqqa, consisting of one pectoral and one winged beetle in gold and cloisonné work, one gold shell pendant decorated with wires and granulation, and one hollow gold amulet in the form of god Min, was analysed by handheld X‐ray fluorescence and scanning electron microscopy...Troalen, Lore ; Guerra, Maria Filomena ; Maitland, Margaret ; Ponting, M ; Price, C
-
2018
Journal article
Dirt, purity, and spatial control: anthropological perspectives on Ancient Egyptian Society and Culture in the Middle Kingdom
The concepts of purity and pollution were central to the maintenance of social boundaries in ancient Egyptian culture. Anthropological approaches, in particular the work of Mary Douglas, are useful in examining their impact on social structure and individual lived experience. Cleanliness and dirtiness were represented as defining characteristics of the...Maitland, Margaret
-
2017
Journal article
Me and my research: shrouded in mystery
Maitland, Margaret
-
2017
Book chapter
Chauchitza at National Museums Scotland
This volume focuses on a formative period in the history and archaeology of northern Greece. The decade following 1912, when Thessaloniki became part of Greece, was a period marked by an extraordinary internationalism as a result of the population movements caused by the shifting of national borders and the troop...Maitland, Margaret
-
2017
Journal article
One Theban tomb, 1000 years of burial
A new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, 'The Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Burial', explores changing funerary practices through the story of one Theban tomb, used and reused for over 1000 years, before it became the first to be systematically excavated and recorded 160 years ago, as curator...Maitland, Margaret
-
2017
Book
The tomb: Ancient Egytian burial
The Tomb presents the story of an extraordinary ancient Egyptian tomb, built around 1290BC in the city of Thebes for a Chief of Police and his wife, and reused for over 1000 years. It was sealed shortly after the Roman conquest of Egypt with an intact family burial. When excavated...Maitland, Margaret
-
2017
Journal article
Seeking eternity: 5,000 years of ancient Egyptian burial
While the ancient Egyptians’ hope for eternal life remained constant, their burial practices were ever-changing. Dr Margaret Maitland, senior curator at National Museums Scotland, charts the remarkable changes in Egyptian tombs and the extraordinary objects that filled them…Maitland, Margaret
-
Lecture
Alexander Henry Rhind and Archaeology
A look at how Rhind’s work in Scotland informed his pioneering work in Egypt, advocacy for the protection of antiquities in both Scotland and Egypt, and his role in devising the original displays of British, Scottish, and Egyptian artefacts at the National Museum of AntiquitiesMaitland, Margaret
-
2015
Book chapter
An innovative antiquarian: Alexander Henry Rhind’s excavations in Egypt and his collection in National Museums Scotland
A varied and charming collection of 17 papers that bring something new about the people from many countries and backgrounds who travelled to, from and within Egypt and the Near East, either singly or as a group, and explored, observed and recorded, or stayed for a short period of time...Irving, Ross ; Maitland, Margaret
-
2015
Book chapter
Hieroglyphs from the North: Newcastle's early travellers in Egypt and their correspondence with Jean-Francois Champollion
A varied and charming collection of 17 papers that bring something new about the people from many countries and backgrounds who travelled to, from and within Egypt and the Near East, either singly or as a group, and explored, observed and recorded, or stayed for a short period of time...Maitland, Margaret