Ken Griffin - Rediscovering Egypt: the Harrogate collection in Swansea

In February 2023, 800 objects arrived at the Egypt Centre from Harrogate Museum, where they will remain on loan for three years. During this time, the collection will be researched, displayed, and presented online, thus making the objects more accessible to Egyptologists and the wider public. Most of the objects were donated by two local Harrogate collectors, Benjamin Kent (1884–1968) and James Roberts Ogden (1866–1940), who had assembled their collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of the objects, particularly those from Kent, were purchased at auction, which is similar to how the Egypt Centre collection was formed. In fact, objects from Kent’s collection are known to have come from the auctions of Robert de Rustafjaell (1859–1943), Henry Martyn Kennard (1833–1911), Frederick George Hilton Price (1842–1909), Field Marshal Francis Wallace Grenfell (1841–1925), and others. These collectors are all known from material housed in the Egypt Centre, thus providing an excellent link between both collections. The Harrogate loan project has been called “Rediscovering Egypt”, with the aim to study both the objects and the collectors—how did Ogden and Kent acquire their objects and why? This talk will present a brief overview of the project, including some of the stories unveiled so far. It was also introduce the Egypt Centre’s first temporary exhibition of the Harrogate material, which will be launched at the conclusion of this talk. Causing Their Names to Live, a title that takes inspiration from a common vivification formula found on statues, stelae, and other objects, presents thirty objects in which the names of the ancient Egyptians have been revealed since arriving in Swansea.