Made in Ancient Egypt Catalog Reexamines Artisan Labor at Fitzwilliam Museum
The University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum presents an exhibition accompanied by a 2025 catalog, Made in Ancient Egypt, which shifts the emphasis from dynastic artifacts to the craftsmen and workers responsible for Ancient Egyptian material and visual culture. Curator Helen Strudwick and Exhibition Assistant Thomas Clarke explore both well-known and obscure items, suggesting that Ancient Egyptian art lacks a modern theoretical framework and terminology, making it more comprehensible through the lens of materials science and the artisans' expertise. The catalog organizes content not by the Old Kingdom–New Kingdom timeline but by materials like clay, stone, and papyrus, followed by specific trades such as coffin making and metalworking. Scientific analyses, including a micro-CT scan of a linen cartonnage from 380–30 BCE, reveal production techniques, while Geoffrey Killen's research illustrates carpentry methods from 680 BCE. This work fills a void in literature and culture that often overlooks the creators within a structured professional hierarchy.
Key facts
- Made in Ancient Egypt (2025) is a fully illustrated catalog for an exhibition of the same name at the University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum.
- Curator and Egyptologist Helen Strudwick and Exhibition Assistant Thomas Clarke reinterpret existing and lesser-known objects in the book.
- The book argues that Ancient Egyptian art cannot be explained by theory alone because there was no Egyptian theoretical or aesthetic treatise and no word for "art" as defined today.
- The catalog replaces the Old Kingdom–New Kingdom chronology with a material-based structure organized by clay, stone, and papyri, then coffin makers, metalworkers, and woodworkers.
- A micro-CT scan reveals gold leaf applied to a linen cartonnage from 380–30 BCE produced for mummified body wrappings.
- Egyptian artisans used measurable systems including faience firing and temperature controls, tool constructions, and inventories of materials.
- Scans of Ancient Egyptian carpentry led by independent researcher Geoffrey Killen show how a carpenter created tight joints in a wooden mummy coffin in 680 BCE.
- The project responds to literature and popular culture that often omits or marginalizes the artisans and laborers of Ancient Egypt.
Entities
Artists
- Helen Strudwick
- Thomas Clarke
- Geoffrey Killen
Institutions
- University of Cambridge
- Fitzwilliam Museum
- Oriental Museum, Durham University
Locations
- Cambridge
- United Kingdom
- Durham
- Egypt
- Qurna