GOLD FACES, GOLD PAVEMENTS & THE GOLDEN GODDESS: OUR EGYPTIAN TOUR ACROSS THE PENNINES
- Graham Walker
- Oct 25
- 5 min read
This month’s rather succinct blog reflects the fact we’ve hardly been at home as current projects have taken us to some special places over the Pennines and back.
First of all we had our annual pilgrimage to Wigan Museum, whose superb building was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1877 complete with a library in which George Orwell researched his most famous book 'Road to Wigan Pier' in 1936. And of course the museum is also home to one of the finest ancient Egyptian faces ever created, the so-called ‘Wigan Lady’ from c.1400 BC who starred in our BBC2 series ‘Immortal Egypt’ https://www.immortalegypt.co.uk/post/a-golden-face-from-a-golden-age-wigan-s-egyptian-gem
With her golden gleaming skin, she was also the obvious focus of our talk presented in the building’s library on the subject ‘Mining in Ancient Egypt and Beyond’. Looking at the way the Egyptians had sourced and mined gold and precious stones to adorn and protect their bodies both in life and death, using huge amounts to embellish their monuments and to exchange in trade and diplomacy, such precious materials were directly linked to goddess Hathor ‘the Golden One’, daughter of the sun god who was also hailed as ‘Lady of Turquoise’, ‘Lady of Amethyst’ & ‘Mistress of Malachite’, synonymous with everything of value taken out of the earth.
The mining theme also allowed us to discuss our recent research identifying the world’s first ever use of coal - in this case lignite - to fuel industry as early as c.1400 BC https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-03544-w And with our analysis of samples from around the ancient world including the Greek mainland, the Mycenaeans’ coal-fired production of ceramic vessels exported to the Egyptian city of Amarna, birthplace of Tutankhamun, brought us back to the famous gold mask found in his tomb which naturally featured prominently in the talk too.
So too our ongoing project recording the Egyptian-inspired monuments across northern England, whose pyramids, temples and obelisks regarded as the perfect way to enhance the status of local aristocrats were so often based on the profits from coalmining https://www.immortalegypt.co.uk/post/touring-ancient-egypt-in-the-north-1
Not only forming the grandest of entrances to their vast estates, Egypt’s ancient architecture was also replicated to commemorate the dead, among the many thousands killed in mining disasters the 26 girls and boys buried beneath the multiple pyramids of Barnsley’s Huskar Memorial of 1838. And with England’s largest pit disaster in 1866 again in Barnsley marked by one of the UK’s smallest obelisks, the loss of 293 men and 91 boys working at the Oaks Colliery had further increased when 27 of the ill-fated rescue party also died, eventually remembered in the form of a second, larger obelisk set up in 1913.
Coincidentally standing close to the top of the street where my grandfather lived, he himself had been a miner and head of the rescue team at Barnsley Main Colliery, a career which in many ways explains my own fascination for mining history dating back into the ancient past. So it was a real privilege (albeit rather nerve-wracking) to have leading mining expert Alan Davies in our Wigan audience, this former miner, colliery manager and mining museum curator also a prolific author who presented me with a beautiful ‘black diamond’ – a piece of Wigan anthracite now sitting on my desk – and a signed copy of his book ‘The Pit Brow Women of the Wigan Coalfield’ https://x.com/pitheadbaths/status/1974561686792327583
It was certainly a great few days on many levels, as we also filmed some of the artefacts featured in our recent ‘Ancient Egypt’s Art and Artists’ study day at Bolton Museum. Just being allowed to handle objects which in some cases are almost 6,000 years old never ceases to amaze, from a predynastic slate palette still bearing traces of the original green pigment to an ancient paintbrush made entirely of reeds, and the same appreciation shared by those who join us for these very special events https://x.com/BoltonLMS/status/1967595018526605374
Then having spent a day tracking down more hidden gems in the archives of the Barlow Institute in nearby Edgworth, we crossed back over the Pennines into Yorkshire to spend a very productive afternoon with colleagues in Bradford. Visiting on a day the museum was closed, we were very lucky to have to ourselves the work of the artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize which this year, the 250th anniversary of JMW Turner’s birth, will be hosted in Yorkshire.
And the stunning installation by Korean-Canadian artist Zadie Xa really blew us away, its shining golden floor reflecting the colourful walls and artworks immediately conjuring up an ancient Egyptian temple, whose polished floors of precious metal are mentioned by none other than Pharaoh Amenhotep III. For he himself described his vast funerary temple at Kom el-Hetan (behind the Colossi of Memnon) as: “an august temple I made as my monument for eternity, of fine sandstone worked with gold throughout. Its pavements are pure silver, all its doors fine gold. It is very great and wide and decorated with enduring images and my statues of every kind of costly stones fashioned with great workmanship to last for eternity”.
Putting us in exactly the right frame of mind to examine some of the highlights of an impressive storage collection within the same grand building, it was fascinating working out how they fit within the whole ‘Egypt in Yorkshire’ project. Going strong for almost 40 years, this self-funded labour-of-love has allowed us to create a network of people, places and artefacts to better understand how British Egyptology developed in the north, whose local representatives (‘secretaries’) of the Egypt Exploration Society https://www.ees.ac.uk/ included not a few inspiring ladies who raised both awareness and much-needed funds to help preserve Egypt’s precious heritage (a role recently revived as the society’s Local Ambassadors scheme https://www.ees.ac.uk/resource/local-ambassador-programme.html).
And with our extended study tour of the north ending back in South Yorkshire, in Sheffield to give the keynote speech at the Council for British Archaeology’s conference (on the subject of – surprise surprise - ’Egypt in Yorkshire’!) and in our beloved Barnsley, we were able to discuss ongoing plans for next year, tying into a forthcoming BBC project to be unveiled very soon...
Jo introduced the Big Ideas by the Sea Festival evening of archaeology on 24th October at St. Mary’s Church Scarborough, and on 18th November she will be speaking at the Northern Ladies fundraising event at Wakefield’s National Coalmining Museum in support of Riding for the Disabled https://www.northernladies.co.uk/
Comments