Buying Power: The Business of British Archaeology and the Antiquities Market in Egypt and Sudan 1880-1939

许多参观英国博物馆中古埃及和苏丹物品的公众并不知道它们是如何进入这些收藏品的。有些人认为它们都是通过科学发掘获得的，而另一些人则认为它们的存在是抢劫的结果。文物市场的作用很少被考虑。这条路线很复杂，既包括经批准的挖掘，也包括非法活动、机会主义卖家和有执照的供应商。过去对考古学家英雄故事的关注掩盖了一个事实，即他们中的许多人公开活跃在文物市场上，买卖物品以获取潜在利润。他们工作中这种商业化的一面可能有助于支持他们和他们的挖掘工作，但也导致许多来源不那么好的物品进入英国，欧洲和北美的博物馆。这个项目的重点是几个人谁扮演挖掘机和经销商的角色，谁是活跃在英国领导的挖掘在埃及和苏丹1880年至1939年。这个项目将评估他们的活动有多广泛，他们如何以及为什么在实地购买物品，他们如何从道德上看待这些交易，并将探讨他们的活动对今天博物馆收藏的影响。这一领域的考古学工作通常集中在发掘，或收集的离散元素，如个人拍卖或收藏家。虽然越来越多的工作认识到收藏的复杂历史现实，但埃及和苏丹的考古学和古董市场的纠缠尚未得到充分调查。这是第一个明确挖掘、文物市场和博物馆收藏之间联系的项目。该项目将改变我们对英国博物馆中许多埃及和苏丹藏品来源的理解，并为未来的研究提供方法。通过将个人及其活动作为个案研究的重点，它将对各种殖民收集做法提供更全面和更透明的叙述。该项目结合了主要在苏格兰国家博物馆进行的详细对象出处研究，以及在爱丁堡、伦敦、牛津、利物浦和曼彻斯特进行的额外收藏和档案研究，以及在多伦多进行的与英国相关的档案。该项目的重点是选定的个人，其收购进入苏格兰国家收藏，作为一个透镜，以审查更广泛的现象。它将集中在策展人埃德温沃德，收藏家雇用查尔斯特里克Currelly，和考古学家/学者约翰Garstang和威廉马修弗林德斯皮特里。他们的购买、销售和经纪活动将受到审查，并根据每个主体的社会经济地位和道德观点进行考虑。1880年至1939年，埃及和苏丹的考古活动达到顶峰，许多博物馆藏品的形成和不同程度的帝国/殖民控制，以及出口规则的改变。这一时期提供了将个人行动与殖民历史和博物馆收藏叙事联系起来的最佳机会。该项目将在研究访问期间与档案持有人、博物馆和大学分享信息和见解，并通过国家科学院的研究资料库在线分享信息和见解，向研究人员和学生快速传播项目的目标、主题和见解。该项目与埃及探索协会、世界博物馆（利物浦）和皮特里博物馆合作，项目的研究结果将被纳入这些机构的知识数据库。该项目包括几个公共活动和一个学术研讨会，以集中关注这一主题，并就埃及和苏丹的历史收藏做法以及今天博物馆如何处理这些收藏品展开更广泛的讨论。

Many members of the public who visit the ever-popular displays of ancient Egyptian and Sudanese objects in UK museums are unaware of how they came to be in these collections. Some assume that they were all obtained through scientific excavations, while others believe that their presence is the result of looting. The role of the antiquities market is rarely considered. This route was complex and encompassed both sanctioned excavations and illicit activities, opportunistic sellers and licensed vendors. A past focus on heroic narratives of archaeologists has obscured the reality that many of them were openly active in the antiquities market, buying, and selling objects for potential profit. This business-like side of their work may have helped to support them, and their excavations financially, but also led to many less well-provenanced objects entering museums across the UK, Europe and North America. This project focuses on several individuals who intersected the roles of excavator and dealer, who were active in British-led excavations in Egypt and Sudan 1880-1939. This project will assess how expansive their activities were, how and why they purchased objects in the field, how they viewed these transactions ethically, and will explore the impact of their activities on museum collections today. Egyptological work in this area has often focused on excavations, or discrete elements of collecting such as individual auctions or collectors. Although there is a growing body of work that recognizes the complex historic realities of collecting, the entanglement of archaeology and the antiquities market in Egypt and Sudan has not been fully investigated. This is the first project which makes explicit the connection between excavation, the antiquities market and museum collections. This project will transform our understanding of the provenance of many collections of Egyptian and Sudanese held in British museums and offer a methodology for future research. By focusing on individuals and their activities as case studies, it will provide a fuller and more transparent narrative of diverse colonial collecting practices. The project combines detailed object provenance research primarily based at National Museums Scotland with additional collections and archival research conducted in Edinburgh, London, Oxford, Liverpool, and Manchester, as well as UK-related archives in Toronto. The project focuses on selected individuals whose acquisitions entered the Scottish national collection, as a lens to examine the broader phenomenon. It will focus on curator Edwin Ward, collector-for-hire Charles Trick Currelly, and archaeologists/academics John Garstang and William Matthew Flinders Petrie. Their purchases, sales and brokering activities will be examined, and considered in relation to each subject's socio-economic status and ethical views. 1880-1939 saw the zenith of archaeological activity in Egypt and Sudan, the formation of many museum collections and varying degrees of imperial/colonial control, and alterations to export rules. This period provides the best opportunity to contextualize individual actions in relation to colonial history and museum collecting narratives. The project will share information and insights with archive holders, museums and universities, during research visits, and online through the NMS research repository, providing rapid dissemination of the project's aims, themes and insights to researchers and students. The project is partnered with the Egypt Exploration Society, World Museum (Liverpool), and the Petrie Museum and the project's findings will be integrated into the knowledge databases of these institutions. The project includes several public events and an academic symposium to focus attention on the subject, opening greater discussion on historic collecting practices in Egypt and Sudan and how these collections are dealt with in museum practice today.