ITP Conference Grant awarded to Marwa Abdel Razek (Egypt, ITP Fellow 2012)
Written by Claire Messenger, Manager, International Training Programme
We are delighted to announce that an ITP Conference Grant 2023 has been awarded to Marwa Abdel Razek (Egypt, ITP Fellow 2012)!
Marwa, who is currently Head of the Registration and Documentation Department at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, will be using her support grant to travel to the Current Research in Egyptology Conference at Basel University, Basel, Switzerland from 10 – 14 September 2023.
At the conference, Marwa has been asked to speak and will present an academic poster on ‘Female Swimmers: Cairo Museum Collections’.
Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) is a postgraduate conference set up to facilitate research and promote bonds between all the international universities worldwide that are conducting research in Egyptology, Egyptian Archaeology, or any other related field of study. Being at Basel University will give Marwa the opportunity to enlarge her network as a museum specialist and an Egyptologist. The 2023 conference will also focus on museums, heritage, and technology which will give Marwa the chance to learn more about new aspects of evaluating and improving workflow in the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
Marwa has chosen to present on Female Swimmers in the Egyptian Museum. She says of her presentation;
“The Ancient Egyptians developed a high-standard body culture connected to water in many ways. Swimming and bathing in the Nile were also one of their religious obligations. They also had baths, not only the pharaohs, but archaeologists found pools for swimming in the dwellings of general people. The girls are depicted naked swimming with arms extended, holding a painted wooden container sometimes in the shape of a lotus flower in the shape of a cosmetic spoon. There have been suggestions that these spoons were actually ritual implements and were used as part of the funerary equipment with traditional sacred oils. In this paper, I will study and publish the Cairo Museum collection based on their cemetery context and the elements that they hold, as well as comparing with similar ones in other museums.”
Since her participation on the ITP Annual Programme 2012, Marwa has remained an active member of the ITP global network.
Marwa attended an Egyptian ITP Fellow reunion held at the British Embassy in Cairo, in April 2018.
Marwa was also awarded an ITP Conference Grant to attend the 20th CRE (Current Research in Egyptology) symposium at Alcala University, Spain in 2019, and the Current Research in Egyptology Conference at Montpellier, France in 2022,
Marwa has also contributed regularly to the ITP Newsletter Publication, sharing submissions on the statue of Amenhotep II with the goddess Meretseger; the colossal statue of Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye and the houses of the ba in ancient Egypt for the Collections in focus theme.
We are delighted to be able to support Marwa to attend and speak at the conference in Basel and look forward to her sharing her experience with the wider ITP network. Congratulations!