Heritage Lottery Grant for Royal Cornwall Museum - 27/02/2012
The Royal Cornwall Museum has been awarded a grant of £233,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to create a new permanent exhibition that will showcase what it was like to live in Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.
The mummified remains of Iset Tayf Nakht – an Egyptian
priest, craftsman, husband and father who lived more than 2500 years ago – have
long been the museum’s most popular exhibit.
They will now be moved to an enclosed tomb area in the new gallery which
visitors can enter if they wish.
Entitled ‘Unwrapping the Past’, the exhibition will explore
6 themes: Mummification and the
Afterlife, Beliefs, In the Home, Making a Living, The Written Word and Studying
the Evidence. Interpretation panels, object
displays and a range of family-focused activities will all be used with the aim
of bringing the past to life and making learning about ancient civilisa
In addition to the unwrapped Egyptian Mummy, another
centrepiece of the exhibition will be the statue of Sekmet, the Lion Goddess,
which is being loaned from the British Museum.
“Challenging environmental conditions in our current Egypt
Gallery meant that many metal artefacts had to be taken off display off four
years ago but the new gallery will have high specification cases, new lighting
and environmental controls and, with much more space, we can exhibit far more
of our wonderful artefacts,” said Head of Programmes Lisa Mitchell.
“Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome have fascinated people since
the earliest antiquarians brought back tales of ruined cities and pyramids and
that fascination still exists today. We
are working closely with the British Museum to re-interpret the collection for
schools, families and general visitors and are very grateful to the Heritage
Lottery Fund for their tremendous support.
I’ve no doubt that people are going to be very impressed when the
exhibition opens in early June.”
Richard
Bellamy, Acting Head of Heritage Lottery
Fund South West, said: “We at HLF are delighted to be able to support the Royal
Cornwall Museum in the creation of the new Ancient Civilisations gallery. This
project will help ensure the ongoing preservation and care of some of the
museum’s most fascinating and popular artefacts. At the same time, the
new gallery will create opportunities for visitors to enjoy these wonderful
collections and gain a wonderful insight into past civilisations.”
As match funding towards the overall cost of the project,
£55,000 has also been secured from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
and £10,000 from the Foundation for Sports and the Arts.
Around twenty volunteers are being recruited and trained to
provide tours and handling sessions in the new gallery. Anyone interested in applying, should email Maggie.greenall@royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk
or call the museum on 01872 272205.