Artefacts of excavation: the British collection and distribution of Egyptian finds to museums, 1880 – 1915

This paper explores the collection of artefacts from British excavations in Egypt and their dispersal to institutions across the world between 1880 and 1915. The scope, scale and complexity of these distributions is reviewed with a view to highlighting the complex, symbiotic relationship between British organizations that mounted such excavations on the one hand and museums on the other, and also to providing a basis from which to argue that both field and museum collecting practices were enmeshed within the same processes of ‘artefaction’. These shared processes together created a new form of museum object, here referred to as the ‘excavated artefact’. It is further suggested that the collection of artefacts for museums was one of the primary motivating factors in the establishment of a scientific archaeology in Egypt. Case-studies of the activities of the Egypt Exploration Fund and Flinders Petrie’s work are presented in order to throw these arguments into relief. An online Appendix tabulates the original distribution of objects from EEF excavations to other institutions