Roman and Late Antique Artefacts from Egypt: Understanding Society and Culture

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The research project will be the first in-depth study of the society and culture of Roman and Late Antique Egypt that uses everyday artefacts as its principal source of evidence. In this way it will transform our understanding of social experience and social relations in Roman and Late Antique Egypt. UK museums hold significant collections of artefacts from Roman and Late Antique Egypt (c. 30 B.C. to A.D. 700) as a result of archaeological excavations carried out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet because scholarly interest has focused on the Egypt of the Pharaohs, and on evidence about Egypt from ancient texts, most of these objects have never been studied. This situation is likely to continue, since most UK museums and universities do not have any specialists with relevant expertise. We will focus on the collection of UCL's Petrie Museum, one of the largest and best-documented in the UK, designated by the UK govt. in 1998 as of 'outstanding importance'. The collection contains more than 8000 objects dating to the periods under study, most of which have not been the subject of any research. Moreover, the collection includes many objects that rarely survive elsewhere, and so is very important in terms of our overall understanding of Roman artefacts across the empire. By examining the features of artefacts, the materials they were made from, evidence of modification that shows how they were used in daily life, and associated texts that provide further information, we will investigate aspects of social behaviour and experience and shed new light on daily life in Roman and Late Antique Egypt. We are particularly interested in investigating how experiences may have differed among people with varying status in society (children, adults, people of different social class), which can be investigated by examining objects that can be associated with these particular groups. By examining aspects such as wear and repair, we will also investigate the personal and sentimental meanings that may have been attached to objects. The categories of objects that we will study will comprise ordinary everyday artefacts such as dress accessories, shoes, toys, simple musical instruments such as bells, clappers and rattles, and other domestic items. The potential of the material to transform understanding is amply demonstrated through pilot studies of selected artefact categories from Roman and Late Antique Egypt (baskets, dice, reed pens, and feeding bottles) already undertaken by the investigators and researcher on the project. These studies show that the research value of Roman material culture from Egypt is immense, and that similar approaches to a much wider data-set of everyday artefacts are likely to yield extremely significant results.The research will bring together specialists in the interpretation of ancient Egyptian texts, and archaeological artefacts, drawing on new methodologies and interpretative approaches including the experimental recreation of objects using new technologies. It will result in a co-authored book that will be a significant departure from extant previous studies of the social history of Roman and Late Antique Egypt in its focus on artefact evidence. Further outputs will include a journal article on the 3D scanning and recreation of objects, online teaching and research resources for schools and universities, a workshop for museums and academics, and a museum display at the Petrie Museum open to the general public.The museum display will present our research on the simple musical instruments in particular, displaying the originals from the Petrie collection, prototypes & replicas made via 3D scanning/printing technology (which may be handled and played by visitors), the sounds that can be made using the replica artefacts, and our interpretation of how the artefacts would have been used to create particular experiences, for instance in religious and ritual activities.