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Description: | The Museum has formed a significant and comprehensive collection of Egyptology through subscriptions to British excavations since 1884, involving excavators such as Flinders Petrie and also local benefactors such as Annie E F Barlow, the daughter of a Bolton cotton-spinning manufacturer. The Egyptian collection is seen as one of the most important provincial collections in this country, is associated with 68 sites in the Nile Delta and Valley and dates from the Neolithic to the Roman/Christian periods. It includes a 3,000-year-old mummy plus other funerary and also domestic items. Interest in Egypt's ancient civilisation, particularly textiles arose in the 19th century because of the links between Bolton and Egypt through the cotton trade. The reference collection of c.1500 specimens of Egyptian and Sudanese textiles is the third largest in the UK and dates from c.5000 BC to the 12th century AD.
British archaeology dates from the Mesolithic to Post-Medieval. Foreign archaeology includes Near East, Swiss, Pre-Columbian, Aztec, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, India, pacific, Australasia and Greek. There is also an important collection of Egyptology including textiles, funerary items, domestic wares and a mummy.
British Archaeology includes a relatively small number of Mesolithic to Post-Medieval finds, mainly acquired from the late 19th century onwards from local excavations. Collections also include Roman and Medieval objects from mid 19th century excavations in Warwickshire (James Murton bequest); Neolithic, Bronze Age and Roman material from Derbyshire and other sites, an important series of bone material and human artefacts from Derbyshire caves; flint tools from Pengelley's work (1865-1880) at Kent's Cavern; Roman material from Cirencester and flints from Northfleet, Kent; sherds of pottery from a Medieval kiln at Cheam, Surrey; flint tools of Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age date from Britain and Europe; Neolithic and Bronze Age flint implements, collected from the raised beach at Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex; Bronze Age axes and spearheads, including part of a founder's hoard from Bury St Edmunds, and Roman glass from Stanton Chair, Sussex.
Ancient Near East material compliments Egyptian material and comes from excavations in Palestine by Flinders Petrie (1926-1938) in addition to more recent excavations in Syria, Jordan and Iran and a series of items from Iraq (John Rowland Ragdale collection)
There is also a substantial amount of foreign material acquired from the 19th century onwards from all five continents, made up of small groups of objects but some of notable importance including artefacts from dwellings at Lake Bienne and Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, excavated by Professor Fellenburg in the 1860's (part of the Rooke Pennington collection); Pre-Columbian Peruvian pottery, wooden sculpture and mummies donated in 1903 by W T Smithies and also Pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles, purchased from Guillermo Schmidt Pizzaro in the 1930s and Aztec material from 1881 excavations near Mexico City. | Subjects: | Archaeology Ancient Egypt | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | FAX: | +44 (0)1204 332 241 | Telephone: | +44 (0)1204 332 211 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:2150 | Go to resource |
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