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Department of Ancient Egypt & Sudan
The British Museum
Great Russell Street
London WCB 3DG
United Kingdom
E-mail: Egyptian@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8311
Fax: +44 (0)20 7323 8803
THE COLLECTION
The Department holds the largest collection of its kind outside Cairo. The core collection comprises over 100,000 items. All periods from the Neolithic to the Coptic period are abundantly represented, as are some 300 archaeological sites in Egypt, Sudan and further afield. In recent years, a series of exceptional donations have added dramatically to this material. This includes over six million prehistoric artefacts excavated by Fred Wendorf (Southern Methodist University, Dallas) in Egypt and Sudan between 1963 and 1997, some thousand stone samples collected in pharaonic quarries by Dietrich and Rosemarie Klemm (University of Munich), and over 3000 items from the work of William Adams (University of Kentucky) at Kulubnarti in Sudan. Some of the most important objects (roughly two hundred) can be viewed and learned about on the Museum’s Compass website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/index.html.
HISTORY
Egyptian objects have been part of the British Museum since its foundation in 1753 to house the objects left to the nation by Sir Hans Sloane. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 
1801, the Museum most famously acquired the Rosetta Stone that his scholars had acquired with his invasion of Egypt. In the early 19th century, Britain's consul in Egypt, Henry Salt, amassed large collections of antiquities that form an important core of the collection. His agent Belzoni brought to Britain the colossal statue of Ramses II still dominating the sculpture gallery. Antiquities from proper excavations began to arrive in the later 19th century, mostly from work by the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society). The greatest influx of antiquities came through the purchasing efforts of Wallis Budge, Keeper of the Department between 1886 and 1924. Many smaller pieces have come to the collection since the Second World War, and the collection continues to grow. The antiquities laws in Egypt no longer allow the allotment of finds to excavating institutions, but the Department continues to acquire material from work in Sudan and through purchases and donations (see also the previous section).
STAFF
The main activities of the Department comprise the care, display, study and publication of the collections. It organises special exhibitions and lends objects to numerous exhibitions and institutions within the UK and abroad. Departmental staff also undertake archaeological and epigraphic fieldwork in Egypt (Tell el Balamun, Kom Firin, Hierakonpolis, Elkab, Hagar Edfu) and Sudan (Fourth Cataract region, Kurgus, Dangeil). The Department organises various international conferences each year to promote and publicise ongoing research. Nine curators are supported by a team of administrative staff, museum assistants (in charge of object handling and storage), an illustrator, an archivist and library staff.
FACILITIES
The Department provides a regular service of advice and assistance to other institutions, academics and the general public. Its studyroom houses one of the world’s top ten egyptological libraries, where artefacts can be examined by researchers. Material in the archive can likewise be consulted by appointment. It holds a wide range of 19th-century and later drawings, watercolours, photographic material, squeezes, correspondence, notebooks and manuscripts, much thereof associated with eminent figures in the history of Egyptology.
More detailed information on the Department can be found at http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/aes/aeshome.html.
