Christian Greco on Transforming Turin's Egyptian Museum

Christian Greco, director of the Museo Egizio di Torino since 2014, was selected from 101 candidates. He arrived in Leiden on January 7, 1997, at age 21, after earning a degree in Archaeology from the University of Pavia. To support himself during his master's in Egyptology, he cleaned public bathrooms at the station and worked as a night watchman at the Ibis hotel. He later earned a PhD in Pisa, taught Greek and Latin in Dutch secondary schools, and became a professor of Egyptian funerary archaeology and Nubian and Sudanese archaeology at Leiden University. He has collaborated with museums like the Louvre and led excavations in Syria, Egypt, and Sudan. Under his leadership, the museum saw around 850,000 annual visitors in 2016 and 2017, nearly 1 million in 2015 after reopening, and revenues of about €9 million reinvested in digitalization and public archaeology. The museum has embraced contemporary art, exemplified by the exhibition 'Anche le statue muoiono' (until September 9, 2018), in collaboration with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Musei Reali, and Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino. Greco spoke at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma on May 22, 2018, in an event curated by Tiziana Musi.