Museo Egizio di Torino opens ME-Scripta research center for ancient Egyptian writing

The Museo Egizio di Torino has launched ME-Scripta, a research center dedicated to studying, restoring, and digitizing ancient Egyptian written sources. Funded with €3 million from Fondazione CRT, the center is directed by Susanne Töpfer, former curator of the museum's papyrological collection. The museum, founded in 1824 by King Carlo Felice di Savoia and housed in Palazzo dell'Accademia delle Scienze, holds one of the world's most significant papyrus collections: about 1,000 manuscripts and over 30,000 fragments spanning 3,000 years in 7 scripts and 8 languages. ME-Scripta will pursue three major projects: papyri and philology (including reassembling the Assiut cartonnage and editing 25 unpublished demotic manuscripts from Gebelein), ostraca (limestone flakes and pottery sherds), and RE-BIND (restoring 17 Coptic bindings from the 7th-8th centuries). The center will develop ECHiMaP for innovative conservation methods. By 2034, an integrated digital platform will extend the existing TPOP system with IIIF images, transcriptions, and links to international databases. The center will employ two curators, three collaborators, a data manager, and an apprentice, and over nine years more than 150 professionals will access training programs. Partnerships include the University of Turin and IFAO in Cairo.