Museo Egizio di Torino unveils new permanent exhibition 'Materia. Forma del tempo'

The Museo Egizio in Turin has inaugurated a new permanent exhibition titled 'Materia. Forma del tempo' (Matter. Form of Time), open from October 5, 2024. The installation reorients the museum's museological approach from purely Egyptological to contemporary archaeology, emphasizing materiality, provenance, and object function. It features approximately 6,000 artifacts from the museum's storerooms, spanning from the Predynastic period (4000–3100 BCE) to the Byzantine era (565–642 CE). The exhibition is organized into three thematic rooms: the first displays 40 varieties of wood and pigments in large shelving units, highlighting ancient artisans' material choices; the second presents nearly 5,000 ceramic vessels arranged like a library in two-story vitrines, focusing on production, function, and context; the third showcases stone artifacts including statues, stelae, ceiling fragments, and stone vessels, underscoring Egyptian technical skill. A narrative path integrating artifacts, graphics, and videos illustrates the ancient Egyptian color palette, mixing techniques, and painting stages, culminating in a sarcophagus with complex construction history revealed through projections and videomapping. Museum president Evelina Christillin and director Christian Greco stated that the new vision results from a decade of research and collaboration between archaeology and digital methodologies, positioning the museum at the forefront of archaeological research.