Manchester Museum - Archaeological Collections

Archaeological Collections

The major collecting areas in archaeology have been Western Europe (including the British Isles), the Mediterranean, Egypt and Western Asia. Large accessions of material from Egypt and Western Asia came from the excavations of Sir Flinders Petrie and subsequently archaeologists from the University have been involved in several expeditions to Western Asia and brought more finds into the Museum. The Egyptological collections begin with finds from Kahun and Gurob, presented in 1890 by Jesse Haworth and Martyn Kennard. By 1912 the growth of this area had been so great that a whole new wing was added to allow proper accommodation for the Egyptian material and Jesse Haworth made a major donation of funds for this purpose. In more recent times the Egyptian Mummy Research Project, begun in 1973, has yielded much information on health and social conditions in ancient Egypt and radiology and endoscopy have been used extensively. A redesign of the galleries in 1984/85 resulted in much improved displays.