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

该研究项目将首次深入研究罗马和古埃及晚期的社会和文化，并将日常人工制品作为主要证据来源。通过这种方式，它将改变我们对罗马和古埃及晚期社会经验和社会关系的理解。英国博物馆收藏了大量来自罗马和古埃及晚期（公元前30年至公元700年）的文物，这些文物是19世纪末和20世纪初进行考古发掘的结果。然而，由于学者的兴趣集中在法老的埃及，以及古代文献中关于埃及的证据上，这些物品中的大多数从未被研究过。这种情况很可能会继续下去，因为大多数英国博物馆和大学没有任何具有相关专业知识的专家。我们将重点关注伦敦大学学院皮特里博物馆的藏品，这是英国规模最大、记录最完整的博物馆之一，1998年被英国政府指定为“重要文物”。这些藏品中有8000多件可以追溯到研究时期的物品，其中大部分都不是任何研究的主题。此外，这些藏品包括许多在其他地方很少幸存的物品，因此对于我们对整个帝国的罗马文物的整体了解非常重要。通过研究人工制品的特征，制作它们的材料，显示它们在日常生活中如何使用的修改证据，以及提供进一步信息的相关文本，我们将研究社会行为和经验的各个方面，并为罗马和古埃及晚期的日常生活提供新的视角。我们特别感兴趣的是调查不同社会地位的人（儿童、成年人、不同社会阶层的人）的经历是如何不同的，这可以通过检查与这些特定群体相关的物体来研究。通过对磨损和修复等方面的考察，我们还将研究可能附着在物品上的个人和情感意义。我们将学习的物品类别将包括普通的日常用品，如服装配件，鞋子，玩具，简单的乐器，如铃铛，拍板和摇铃，以及其他家庭用品。该项目的调查人员和研究人员已经对罗马和古埃及晚期选定的人工制品类别（篮子、骰子、芦苇笔和喂养瓶）进行了试点研究，充分证明了这些材料改变理解的潜力。这些研究表明，来自埃及的罗马物质文化的研究价值是巨大的，对更广泛的日常人工制品数据集进行类似的研究可能会产生极其重要的结果。这项研究将汇集古埃及文本和考古文物解释方面的专家，利用新的方法和解释方法，包括使用新技术对物体进行实验性的再创造。这将导致一本合著的书，这将是一个重大的偏离现有的罗马和晚期古埃及的社会历史的研究，其重点是人工制品的证据。进一步的产出将包括一篇关于物体3D扫描和重建的期刊文章，为学校和大学提供在线教学和研究资源，为博物馆和学者举办研讨会，以及在皮特里博物馆向公众开放的博物馆展览。博物馆展览将特别展示我们对简单乐器的研究，展示Petrie收藏的原件，通过3D扫描/打印技术制作的原型和复制品（可以由游客处理和播放），可以使用复制文物发出的声音，以及我们对如何使用这些文物来创造特定体验的解释，例如在宗教和仪式活动中。

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.