Looking at Permanent Displays at the British Museum (Abdulrahman Sedeeg Adam Sharaf, ITP 2019, Sudan)
Written by Abdulrahman Sedeeg Adam Sharaf, Director of Sultan Ali Dinar Museum, National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (ITP 2019, Sudan)
The British Museum is a large international museum. It consists of collections from different parts of the world. We are lucky to be here and see world history through British Museum galleries.
We started our day with meeting at the Great Court with the ITP fellows and the ITP team. After moving to the Boardroom, we were given at tour of the Sutton Hoo display from Sue Brunning, Curator of Early Medieval European Collections. It was an interesting lecture.
We toured around the Museum some more. We came across the Egyptian and Sudan galleries, which has a large number of collections; statues, sculptures and mummies. I was not expecting to find this massive archaeological collection. It was great! But what stole my attention was the Rosetta Stone. There was a large crowd around the Stone and when I approached the display I found that people want to see Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. I understood the importance of this Stone being located at the centre of the gallery.
Returning to the Sutton Hoo display, it was great to see Anglo-Saxon culture. The most important object in this gallery was the Sutton Hoo ship burial that was arranged inside a recreation of the wooden chamber. There was also a video to show how the ship burial would have looked. It was a great display.
We then focused on a new gallery in the British Museum: The Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World. It was an amazing gallery that presents Islamic culture. We discovered and learned many things from this gallery. The gallery consists of many sections: beautiful domestic objects, musical instruments, books and many other things. Objects that have come from many countries: Africa, Turkey, Iran and China. It really was a day full of excitement. We are still eager to know more about the other galleries in the Museum. We want to know all scopes of the Museum’s work and acquire these skills to help us improve our own museums.
Abdulrahman