Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society

ON January 9, Stephanie Boonstra, who is in charge of the renowned Egypt Exploration Society’s archive, took nearly 100 members of the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society through some of her favourite items from more than 140 years.

The archive holds excavations records, photographs, films, drawings, letters and notebooks from some of the most famous excavations, with items such as a photograph of the First Dynasty King Djer’s forearm with bracelets. The bracelets are now on display in Cairo but the bones are lost.

One of the Bucheum (the cemetery for the divine Buchis bulls) inadvertently also captures Sir Flinders Petrie’s favourite Turkish slippers for posterity. A total of 28,000 fragile glass plate negatives are held in the archive, some from the Armant excavation where the dig dark room was a favourite haunt of the local bats, and now require
very careful handling and conservation.

The archive holds more than a million items. a valuable record for research.

There will be another Zoom lecture on Saturday, January 23 on “The sun temple of Niuserra at Abu Ghurab”.

Non-members can register for any of the forthcoming zoom events a few days before the even via the website, www.tvaes.org.uk

Francesca Jones