Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage

The heritage of Ancient Egypt is dispersed across the globe, with little recognition of the complex histories implied in objects. In this conversation with Richard Bussmann, Anna Brus, Juliane Hornung, Stefanie Michels, Ciraj Rassool, and Martin Zillinger, Alice Stevenson positions the study of ancient Egypt in the broader context of decolonization, knowledge production and museum cultures. Trained in archaeology and museum studies, she discusses ways of engaging with Egyptian heritage in Egypt and explores the entangled history of Egypt at the interface of Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe.

This interview is part of our “Museums in Motion Workshop Series”. Contributions will be uploaded every Tuesday. The podcast series curates dialogues about the future of museums and colonial collections in a global context. Conceived as a workshop, it presents conversations in an ongoing debate with scholars, curators, activists and others across space.

For those who prefer to listen to the podcast on the go, we provide the episode as mp3 file here. After a right click on the audio bar, you can select ‘save file’ and download it to your device.

Dr Alice Stevenson is an Associate Professor of Museum Studies at University College London. Her research interests include the archaeology of Egypt and the history of museums and collections of anthropology, archaoelogy and Egyptology.

Dr Richard Bussmann is a Professor of Egyptology at the University of Cologne. His research focuses on the society and culture of ancient Egypt. He co-directs the fieldwork project “Zawyet Sultan: archaeology and heritage in Middle Egypt”.