This exhibition invites you to step behind the scenes with Brown’s researchers in Egyptology, archaeology, medicine, and materials science. Together they have used modern technologies to discover how the objects in Brown’s ancient Egyptian collections were made and used thousands of years ago. Although many of the objects presented here are broken and do not have a definite date or place of origin, by looking inside the objects themselves, we can learn a great deal about their histories.

This research is an interdisciplinary effort with objects from three different collections: the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, the Department of Egyptology and Assyriology, and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World. All of these are research collections, which means that they are under constant study by members of the Brown community.

As you walk through this exhibit, you will see ancient and modern worlds collide. Familiar technologies such as X-rays, CT scans, and photography--and some less familiar ones--can show us what ancient Egyptian objects were made from, how they were constructed, and what roles they played in daily life.

This exhibit was curated by Jen Thum, Ph.D. candidate in the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and Julia Troche, Ph.D. Brown University Department of Egyptology and Assyriology. Open June 16, 2015 through May 3, 2016.