Roman Period Cartonnage mummy mask

Photo:Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley

A unique new Egyptian exhibit opened at Berkeley's Phoebe A. Hearst Museum yesterday, and ARCE is proud to have played a part in making it happen. The Conservator's Art: Preserving Egypt's Past, which highlights the important role conservators and conservation play in the preservation of cultural heritage items housed in museums, was partially funded by an Antiquities Endowment Fund grant from ARCE.

The exhibit places on display rare artifacts from the Hearst Museum's vast Egyptian collection and offers a unique look into how museums blend technology and the humanities to conserve and understand ancient objects. Included are crocodile mummies that recently underwent CT scans at Stanford Medical School as well as statuary, mummy portraits, amulets, and one of only 30 known "reserve heads" used in Egyptian burial practices. ARCE's AEF grant allowed for the conservation and preparation of many of the displayed objects.

The Conservator's Art is a memorial to Egyptologist and Berkeley Professor Cathleen "Candy" Keller, who passed away last year and was originally lead curator for the show. Keller's friend and colleague, Dr. Carol Redmount, completed the exhibition. "I was thrilled to pick up Candy’s mantel to highlight the conservator’s contribution to cultural heritage preservation using the lens of the Hearst’s Egyptian collection," she says.

The Conservator's Art runs until spring 2011.

Read the full press release>>

View a slide show of the exhibit on San Francisco's KTVU>>