STUDY AND RESEARCH MISSIONS

The members of our team not only work in the field in Egypt but they frequently also study ancient Egyptian wooden objects preserved in international museums and research institutes. This allows them to undertake comparative studies with the material from the archaeological sites involved in the Medjehu Project and in addition broadens their general knowledge of woodcraft.
So far, we have worked or are currently working in the following international museum collections and archaeological organizations: 

  • Cairo: 
    • IFAO headquarters storerooms: study of wooden artifacts coming from various Egyptian archaeological sites.
    • Egyptian Museum: study of wooden furniture and New Kingdom black coffins;
      study of the manufacturing techniques of wooden coffins and statues from the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom;
      study of the collection of wooden funerary models (including taking measurements and detailed photography). 
  • Turin, Museo Egizio:
    study of the Deir el-Medina wood collection in the Museo Egizio, Turin;
    study of the collection of wooden funerary models from Asyut, Middle Egypt (including descriptions and cataloguing, taking measurements, analysis of assembling methods and study of polychrome decoration). 
  • Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Egyptian Collection):
    study of Deir el-Medina shabtis and New Kingdom Black coffins with yellow decoration.
  • Paris, Louvre Museum:
    study of Deir el-Medina shabtis and New Kingdom black coffins with yellow decoration;
    study of the collection of wooden funerary models from Asyut (including descriptions and cataloguing, taking measurements, analysis of assembling methods and study of polychrome decoration). 
  • London, British Museum:
    study of the New Kingdom black coffins with yellow decoration;
    study and analysis of the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period wood collections;
    study of funerary models from Asyut as well as those from the 6th Dynasty in order to define their technical and stylistic features (including descriptions and cataloguing, taking measurements, analysis of assembling methods and study of polychrome decoration). 
  • London, Petrie Museum:
    study of the Middle Kingdom woodcraft collection. 
  • London, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
    study and analysis of ancient Egyptian wood in Kew Gardens (Economic Botany Collection). 
  • London, Freud Museum
    study and analysis of ancient Egyptian wood statues from the Sigmund Freud collection. 
  • Neuchâtel, Ethnographic Museum
    study of the collection of wooden funerary models and wooden statues (Old and Middle Kingdom), published in the Museum’s catalogue of the collection (see publications). 
  • Oxford, Ashmolean Museum:
    study of the New Kingdom Black coffins with yellow decoration. 
  • Marseille, Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne:
    study of the New Kingdom Black coffins with yellow decoration.
  • Lyon, Museum of Fine Arts
    study of the collection, analysis of the materials and scanning of the funerary models at the Édouard Herriot University Hospital in Lyon, Department of Radiology, under the direction of Professor Pilleul.
  • Abu Dhabi, Louvre Museum
    assessment of a wooden boat model: identification of provenance and dating.
  • Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum 
    study of the wooden collection of the university museum and Eton College.