Achievements of BA Antiquities Museum in 2019

The following are the achievements of BA Museum in 2019:

1- Lectures

- Antiquities Museum presented in its cultural season 25 distinguished lectures inside BA halls.

They included: “Discovery of the First Sunken Islamic Harbor in the Gulf of Aqaba”, and “The Reassembling and Reconstruction of Khufu’s Boat: A Reading through the Archive of the Restorer Ahmed Youssef”. In the Palace of Princess Khadija in Helwan, lecture entitled: “Helwan, the City of Palaces and Chateaux: A Study in the Origins of the City, its History and Antiquities”.

-The fourth annual forum in March discussed “Our Archaeological Heritage ... A vision to Future” in the name: Cultural Heritage of Rashid through the Ages”

-BA Museum annually celebrates the International Museums’ Day in May.

-BA Museum presented 2 exhibitions: Exhibition of photos about "“Cultural Heritage of Rashid through the Ages”, and Taj Photography Exhibition: Treasures from the Royal Jewelry Museum in Alexandria.

2- Periodic tasks:

Curators Unit:

-In the fields of restoration and conservation, the Antiquities Museum restoration team restored 15 pieces of artifact during 2019. Keeping track of (conservation-restoration) of 25 pieces of artifact, then creating reports and official documents related to this issue.

-The Museum participated by displaying 22 artifacts in the Exhibition of “Tebtunis”, in the Egyptian museum at Cairo from 4/2/2019 until 4/4/2019.

The artifact were brought back to the museum; also, the Museum staff brought four Canopic Jars from the Egyptian Museum to be displayed permanently in BA Museum.

-About the Archaeological awareness, those in charge of the Museum rewrote some labels of the most interested artifacts in a different method in some famous museums in the world to give brief and important information for each artifact.

-In addition, on the human side, the Museum staff worked on helping the blind, in different ways, to enjoy their tour inside the museum; the staff made special labels for them in coordination with the Taha Hussein Library, explaining most of the important artifacts.

The staff made some painting models for some interested artifact to help the blind to imagine the actually shape of the artifacts.

In addition, the staff prepared an audio translation for the ‘mummy’ movie for the blind. This was in coordination with some associations in order to bring the blind people to the museum to get familiar with the experience of painting models and film.

Guides Unit:

- BA organized 6 events throughout workshops for children

- The Museum guided visitors for various groups and VIP tours around 2780 visits in: (Arabic 1910 tours, English 740 tours, French 100 tours, Italian 11, Spanish 6 tours and Greek 12 tours).

The number of visitors of Antiquities Museum (paid), reached 79,888 and VIP reached 10733.

-BA witnessed an increase in the number of volunteers and trained them to fill the work needs in different languages.

Website Unit:

The Museum website team has documented/archived 50 events with a total number of 2474 of photos. A number of 31 news were published on the website.

The before and after state of conservation for 22 artifacts were documented (781 photos), in addition to documenting 115 other artifacts (1002 photos) for different purposes such as updating old photographic files, material needed for upcoming exhibitions, etc.

A number of 61 coins were photographed using RTI technique with an output of 14 RTI files with different specs for each coin (a total of 845 RTI files).

Furthermore, 27 permanent and temporary artifacts were added to the museum database. In addition, (4) articles and (22) detailed description in Arabic, English and French were prepared for artifacts and a French glossary for archaeological and historical terminology was added for online users.

Moreover, 91 new photos were added to update the photographic content of 44 artifacts on the website frontend.

The unit has also updated the information concerning the collection formerly acquired from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The bibliography for the two collections of the Submerged Antiquities and the Collection of Umm el-Brigat was made available for the website users.

The Unit team has, in addition, responded to 31 photo internal and external photo requests and 224 photos were passed to the requesting parties.

The Unit also organized (in cooperation with Alexandria Center for Maritime Archeology and Under Water Heritage) an event entitled “The Young explorer of the Great Sea” which aims to raise the awareness about marine cultural and natural heritage.

Publishing Unit:

Education Program activities

The Education Program of the BA Antiquities Museum welcomed more than 35 children from May to September. Many art workshops were also organized in cooperation with other units.

The “Antiquities Museum Educational Program”, organized the competition “Draw and Discover”. For the fourth year in a row and within the frame of this competition, the Tour Guide- Unit had prepared research papers, which the Educational Program is responsible for reviewing and evaluating.

Participating with other departments of BA:

-In cooperation with both the Children’s and Young People’s Libraries, BA organized four workshops in the period between the 27th and 30th of January 2019.

The workshops discussed topics such as Alexander the Great, Mosaics fabrication and royal headdress and wigs.

- The Museum collaborated with the Natural and Applied Science Unit within the Library Sector on April 28, 2019 in celebration of the Arab Deaf Week. The Museum received a group of deaf in a museum tour.

-Within the months of June, July and August the Antiquities Museum collaborated with the Children’s and Young People’s Libraries in the production of three workshops directed towards children and youth. The workshops handled topics such as Islamic windows, Medusa and Egyptian pen cases.

-As well, during the month of July the Museum organized the event “Adventures in the Antiquities Museum” in cooperation with the Library Sector and Children’s Library.

The participants visited the Museum and had the opportunity to learn its contents and they watched a movie displaying the journey of the deceased within the realm of the underworld.

-During the month of December, the Museum cooperated once again with the Library Sector in organizing the “Easy Reading” event; the participants made a tour inside the Museum.