ancient egypt IN 5 OBJECTS
Why does Macclesfield have an Ancient Egyptian collection? Discover our historic links to Egypt and the remarkable female explorers who visited.
Marianne Brocklehurst’s Diary
Scrabbling in the sands for antiquities, bartering for goods in Arabic and trying to shoot a crocodile. When Macclesfield silk heiress Marianne Brocklehurst first visited Egypt in 1873, she found adventure on the Nile. Reading her beautifully illustrated diary, you can see Egypt through her eyes. With her partner, Mary Booth, nephew, Alfred, and multi-talented servant, George, Marianne travelled by boat down to modern Sudan. On the way, they stopped to see ancient sites and buy artefacts. Back home, Marianne added to her diary, pasting in research and letters about the objects she had bought. Marianne and Mary fell in love with Egypt and visited four more times. Macclesfield’s ancient Egypt collection is due to their avid collecting and fundraising.
To protect Marianne’s paintings from light damage, her diary is not on permanent display. It can be viewed at special events throughout the year so check our What’s On page for upcoming opportunities.
Shebmut
The vibrant colours of this mummy case make it hard to believe that it’s around 3,000 years old. For thousands of years, it was protected by a wooden outer coffin inside a dark tomb. That was until 1874, when it was bought by Marianne Brocklehurst and Mary Booth and smuggled to Macclesfield. When they researched the hieroglyphic writing they discovered that it had been made for a female temple worker named Shebmut. Shebmut worked in the temple of the god Amun as a ‘Singer in the Interior of Amun’ which was a very important role. She may have been a child or teenager, however we don’t know her age for certain, as Marianne and Mary left her body in Egypt. Marianne wrote that they buried Shebmut by the river, but her friend, Amelia Edwards, who wasn’t there at the time, said that they threw her body into the Nile.
Tutankhamun Ring
Today, Tutankhamun is the most famous of all ancient Egyptian pharaohs, but this wasn’t always the case. Just over a century ago the only people who would have heard of him were Egyptologists. Marianne Brocklehurst acquired this ring in the 1870s-80s when Tutankhamun was still shrouded in mystery. The ring is made from faience, a bright blue ceramic used a lot in ancient Egypt. Though it looks decorative, the design upon it is a message written in hieroglyphs. It reads “Neb-Kheperu-re,” Tutankhamun’s throne name. Tutankhamun wouldn’t have worn it himself but one of his courtiers would. Many similar rings were found during excavations at a site called Amarna in the 1890s. This was Howard Carter’s first dig in Egypt. Little did he know that thirty years later he would find Tutankhamun’s tomb and all the iconic treasures inside.
Model Boat
If you look closely at the crew of this boat you will see that the figures do not match. This is because they weren’t all originally meant to be on this boat. In fact, it seems that some of them weren’t meant to be on a boat at all. The boat was excavated in the 1890s in Meir in Middle Egypt. Many different tomb models were found, including 27 boats. Tomb models were popular grave goods in the Middle Kingdom, around 4000 years ago. They showed different activities, including making bread, brewing beer and ploughing the fields. This was so that these actions would still be done for the dead in the afterlife. Some figures on our boat are posed to do one of these other activities. It looks likely that loose figures from other tomb models were used to make the boat look more complete in the 19th century.
Shabti Box
The two men pictured on this brightly painted box look very different from each other. A bald, shaven man worships the jackal headed god of the dead, Anubis, while a bearded man with long hair worships Osiris, the god of rebirth in the afterlife. Despite their differences, they are in fact the same person, Ashakhet. Ashakhet lived over 3000 years ago in Thebes and would have been buried with this box after his death. The box held lots of small statues called shabtis which would magically come to life in the afterlife. They would work in Ashakhet’s place so he could relax for eternity. On the shorter ends of the box there are pictures of the Four Sons of Horus. These are best known as the models for canopic jars, which would hold the organs of the dead.
