Predynastic Egyptian Pot
The pot pictured below was originally produced in Palestine during the Naqada II or Gerzean period of Egyptian History which dates it between 3500 and 3200 B.C. This pot was excavated by Flinders Petrie from the Gerzeh tombs and came into UCL's possession upon its purchase in 1913. Whilst little firm detail is known about the pot itself, its origins or uses, it is now used as part of a permanent exhibit in the Petrie museum and is of interest due to its relations with Colonial History and Museum Object Theory.
Background
This pot is an example of a museum item which has lost its significance and meaning within and despite of being a part of a museum collection. In essence the importance of this pot comes solely from its position within a wider collection of pottery from a similar time period, this means the true identity and biography of our object has been lost to the curator led narrative in the way it is displayed.
Originally excavated from tomb 173 at the Gerzeh burial site by Flinders Petrie, this object came into UCL's hands when Petrie's entire collection was purchased in 1913 and augmented the already significant collection donated by Amelia Edwards. Since the pot's discovery at Gerzeh its interest and significance has been solely as part of a group. Nonetheless our pot first joined a group as part of Petrie's landmark method of relative dating where it was categorised as a 'W42c' type pot. Since acquisition by the museum (save some stints in storage during the war) this pot has been part of an exhibit to display and explain the seriation method of dating and has therefore languished as one small pot among many. Finally this pot has become relevant again as part of the wider world of colonial archaeology and the recent research into the culture, history and repercussions of these activities.
Original Excavation Card
Short Introduction to Flinders Petrie
Petrie's Relative Dating
Upon excavation by Flinders Petrie this pot became significant in Petrie’s seriation dating method - Petrie was the first person to use relative dating within archaeology.
Pot type W42c was a new category within the system and subsequently Wainwright and Petrie had to develop a method for dating previously unknown finds.This was done through comparative dating of all other pots within the grave group and then finding the shortest overlapping time period – in this case dating between 50 and 70.
Seriation dating allows dating of objects from numerous sites of the same culture to be relatively dated to each other when a more accurate scientific method such as Carbon Dating is unavailable. The method has since been used with stone tools as well as pottery and is most commonly used for dating multiple graves within the same site. Whilst the method contains many flaws for example a dependence upon popularity of pot designs being consistent across different cultural sites or problems with designs such as knives which show no real variation in construct, the method is still popular and useful particularly with modern technology making the distinction of time periods far easier.
Flinders Petrie and Colonial Archaeology
Petrie himself was a conservative and subsequently in support for an Empire which gave him the freedom to travel across Egypt and hire and train Egyptian people to help on his digs. His large scale artifact excavations exemplify the nature of colonial archaeology of brash seemingly aimless excavation which resulted in the collection of thousands of artifacts which were then sent around the world for display.
The physical acquisition of culturally significant artifacts showed Britain exerting her authority over native peoples and this collection was done often with little care for the objects themselves. Grave groups were separated on site and different objects sent across the world often with little or no provenance papers to tell the recipients where they came from and many arrived damaged from the journey.
Further to this the act of giving gifts from Egypt in exchange for funding more strongly tied those countries together and intrinsically links our pot with the idea of colonial capital and displays of power over colonial peoples.
Inalienable Objects
An object which inalienable holds an absolute rather than an exchange value. This means that regardless of who is in possession of an object it is impossible to separate it from it's original owner - in this case the Egyptian culture. Objects cannot really be sold or fully transferred - the easiest way to imagine this is the object as 'on loan' from the original owner.
This pot and the Petrie collection as a whole have no transactional value (the monetary worth of objects within the collection is not known) and remain intrinsically linked with the nation and culture in which they were found – if Egypt requested items be returned as part of their cultural history the Curator of this collection would feel honour bound to ensure this happens to the best of her ability.
References and Further Reading
Petrie Museum, 2014. The Petrie Museum: UC10727. [Online]
Available at: http://petriecat.museums.ucl.ac.uk/detail.aspx#
[Accessed 4 Feb 2015].
Petrie Museum, 2015. History of the Petrie Museum. [Online]
Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/petrie/about/history
[Accessed 20 Feb 2015].
Petrie, W. M. F., Wainwright, G. A. & Mackay, E., 1912. The labyrinth, Gerzeh and Mazghuneh. London: School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Stephen Quirke - Flinders Petrie and Modern Archaeology - Part 1. 2010 [video] The Friends of the Petrie Museum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2se4XHbf0&index=10&list=PL913964FDCBDA4D1E
Stevenson, A., 2006. Gerzeh: a cemetery shortly before history.. 1st ed. London: Golden House Publications.
Stevenson, A., 2014. Artefacts of Excavation. Journal of the History of Collections, 26(1), pp. 89-102.
Stevenson, A., 2015. Discussion on object and Petrie Museum [conversation] (Personal communication, 30 January 2015).
Spillman, D., 2012. Introduction: Reading Colonial Realism. s.l.:Palgrave Macmillan.