Ancient Egypt Collection, Egyptology

The Egyptology Collection at Bolton is the most significant and comprehensive of the Museum’s archaeological collections, both in size and historical value. One might well indeed ask why there should be an Ancient Egyptian collection in Bolton. The answer lies in Bolton’s own history as a textile town and in particular its development as a fine cotton spinning centre in the 19th century. The connection between ancient and modern textiles led to subscriptions being made to British excavations in Egypt from 1883. From then until relatively recently excavators in Egypt were allowed to retain about fifty per cent of what they discovered and were able to distribute this material amongst the museums which had supported their work.

From 1884 when the first items arrived, Bolton began to assemble an Egyptian collection, which is very varied with material from all periods and which includes domestic and funerary objects of many kinds from sixty-eight sites in the Nile Delta, Nile Valley, Nubia and the Sudan. Some of the objects are beautiful, some are very utilitarian and some are even broken and fragmentary. All of them can help us to understand the daily lives and beliefs relating to death of the men, women and children who lived in Egypt and the Sudan from c. 5,000 B.C. until about the 13h century A.D. The Egyptian Collection can also tell us the story of the excavators, men and women, who worked in Egypt and the Sudan from the late 19th century until the present day and whose discoveries have increased our knowledge of this ancient civilisation. Ancient Egypt as a subject is attractive and popular – there is a great deal that is known but the eternal fascination is that there is always more to be found and learnt.