A “kind of exploration or antiquity-dealing-business”: Egyptian archaeology and the Antiquities Trade 1880-1939

Potter, Daniel M

A “kind of exploration or antiquity-dealing-business”: Egyptian archaeology and the Antiquities Trade 1880-1939

Resource type

Lecture

Creator (person)

Potter, Daniel M

Abstract

Egyptological historiography has often focussed on the apparent scientific heroism of archaeologists, obscuring the reality that many of the same heroes were also active in the antiquities market, buying, and selling objects freely. This lecture will discuss the results of research into the entanglement of archaeology and the market 1880-1939. It takes four archaeologists as it’s focus, each of whom took part in British-led excavations in Egypt and Sudan, engaged in the antiquities market and impacted the collections of museums across the world. Select transactions of curator Edwin Ward, collector-for-hire Charles Trick Currelly, and archaeologists John Garstang and Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie will be presented as a way of exploring the broader phenomenon. It will consider how these transactions were arranged and how they were viewed thically and financially. It will also explore how this side of the business of archaeology was seen by others, justified by these excavator-collectors and how a fuller picture of the symbiotic relationship of archaeology and the market impacts how we view the provenance of museum collections and of the history of Egyptology today.