Attending CIPEG 2024 (Mamdouh Farouk, Egypt, ITP 2023)

Written by Mamdouh Farouk, Director, Imhotep Museum (Egypt, ITP 2023)

After my exciting experience on the International Training Programme in 2023, I wanted to gain even more experience in the museum sphere, so was lucky to be accepted to speak at the CIPEG annual meeting in Madrid, Spain from 23 – 27 September 2024.

It was a fabulous and unique experience to present my lecture, The Imhotep Museum in Focus, sharing the Imhotep Museum renovation project by enhancing infrastructure and the future vision. I also gained knowledge and experience about the projects presented at the conference from various international museums, such as Turin Museum, Penn Museum, Houston Museum, and also Egyptian museum projects from my colleagues who participated in the conference.

The Imhotep Museum is considered a site museum, and exhibits an Egyptian collection discovered in Saqqara. It was opened in 2006, and recently, suffered a lot of infrastructure problems, in addition to lack of promotion, so, the conference paper focused on the renovation project, which has been executed with an estimated budget of £48 million.

The project aimed to enhance the efficiency of the infrastructure, such as; drainage lines, electricity lines, central air conditioning units, security systems; renovating the eastern stone wall to protect the museum open court from climate change; and developing an equipped restoration laboratory. As for visitor services, the museum introduced signage; accessibility for disabilities; a brochure, and launched a new gift shop and QR code project.

The museum displays were updated by creating new labels and panels with illustrated graphics, a new light system focusing on objects in showcases, new mounting, and new object displays to enrich the museum narrative such as mummified animals and ritual tools, and finally a temporary exhibition of the excavations of the Bubasteum site in Saqqara.

The proposed second phase of the project includes providing the museum display with a projection system to interpret some objects by creating a sound and light show on a module of King Djoser in the visual setting hall.

Whilst in Madrid, I had a wonderful time visiting the National Archaeological Museum where I watched the use of technology applications in museum displays, especially in the Prehistoric Gallery. We also visited the Temple of Debod in Madrid, with its wonderful structure and scenes. At the end of the week, the conference organizers arranged a trip to the city of Toledo where we visited the Great Cathedral of Toledo and the mosque of Christ of the light. We definitely enjoyed the atmosphere of the city and its historic streets, and at the end of the day, Mrs. Maha Suleiman, the Sudannese ambassador in Spain, invited us to dinner at the Sudanese embassy. It was indeed a wonderful experience in Spain, and I hope to repeat it again one day.