The Unique museum

In 1890, Jesse Haworth and Martyn Kennard presented to the Manchester Museum the unique and valuable set of objects of daily use from Petrie’s excavations at Kahun, Illahun and Gurob. These constituted one of the best collections of Egyptian antiquities in Britain. They were only the first of a succession of gifts made by Haworth to the Museum, which he acquired from Petrie’s excavations. For some nine years, he and Kennard were the sole major supporters of his excavations. His magnificent donations to the Manchester collection kindled great interest in Egyptology in the area. The Museum’s first major Egyptian acquisition had been the gift of a mummy with its coffins belonging to ‘Asru, Chantress of Amun in the Temple of Karnak’. These were presented to the Manchester Natural History Society (founders of the Museum) in 1825, when it was claimed that this was ‘one of the best preserved mummies in the kingdom’. It was, however, Jesse Haworth who contributed most to the Egyptian collection, and the year 1911 was an important landmark in the Museum’s history.

Ashmolean Museum

His donations to the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Egypt Exploration Fund were generous, but it was his support of Petrie’s excavations in the Fayoum which was particularly significant. Petrie had become Hon. Joint Secretary of the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1883, and excavated for the Fund in Egypt during 1884–6. However, he quarrelled with them, and decided to set up an archaeological body of his own, which would be independent. With his original source of funding for excavation no longer available, he faced considerable difficulties, but through the good offices of Amelia Edwards, Jesse Haworth was approached. Petrie received the welcome news that a new avenue of support for his excavations in Egypt had appeared. In his book Seventy Years in Archaeology, Petrie recalls this important turning point, While in England, I heard that the offer of help in excavating came from Jesse Haworth of Manchester, through the kind intervention of Miss Edwards.

Egypt Exploration

Amelia Edwards was a remarkable woman who founded the Egypt Exploration Fund to further the aims of scientific excavation and publication, and to generate public support and enthusiasm for Egyptology. In her will, she bequeathed her library and valuable collection of Egyptian antiquities to University College London; she also left a sum of £2,400 to found the first chair of Egyptology in Britain, at University College London, expressing a wish that Petrie should be appointed. He held this post for forty years. It was a meeting with Amelia Edwards, shortly after his return from Egypt, that inspired Jesse Haworth to give financial support to
the subject, and in 1887, he began to show his enthusiasm in a practical way when he secured the throne, chessboard and chessmen of the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, which had been discovered in Egypt in the previous year. The throne was in pieces, but it was skilfully reassembled and exhibited at the Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester in 1887. When the exhibition closed, Haworth presented it to the British Museum.

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The Kahun

Kahun was built, c.1895 BC, to house the workmen employed in building the pyramid and temples of King Sesostris II. However, it was also occupied by officials who supervised the pyramid building programme, and later, by priests and other personnel who served in the temples. The kings of the 12th Dynasty developed various irrigation projects in this area, and Kahun would also have played a significant role in these concerns. It undoubtedly became a prosperous and important centre, and it would be wrong to regard it simply as a pyramid workmen’s town. In antiquity, both the town and the temple, which adjoined it and was part of the pyramid complex, were known by the name of ‘Hetep-Sesostris’—‘Sesostris is pleased, or satisfied’. However, Petrie, on discovering the site in 1887, asked an old man what the town was called.

Medinet kahun

The town beyond the temple (called Medinet Kahun I hear) I now suspect to be of the age of the temple, 12th Dynasty, and to be almost untouched since then. If so, it will be a prize to work for historical interest of dated objects. I cannot be certain yet as to its age, but the pottery is quite unlike any that I yet know, except some chips of 12th Dynasty that I got at Hawara: and the walls of the town run regardless of natural features, over a low hill and back again but square with the temple. In the 1888/9 season, Petrie, anxious to prevent a German dealer Kruger from ransacking the sites, placed a small number of workmen at Kahun and Gurob. He visited them and supervised their work as frequently as possible from the nearby site of Hawara which he was currently working. According to an entry in his Journal (8–15 April 1889), he was finally able to start his excavation at Kahun.

21st and 26th Dynasties.

A small temple adjoined the pyramid on the east, and half a mile distant on the edge of the desert lay another temple, also part of the original pyramid complex. North of the larger temple was situated the town of the pyramid workmen, known today as ‘Kahun’. At the south end of the dyke, a later town, built in the 18th Dynasty, also attracted Petrie’s attention. Egyptologists know it by the name of ‘Gurob’ or ‘Medinet Gurob’. An entry in his Journal for the period 24 February to 2 March 1889 clearly indicates Petrie’s initial interest in the site of Kahun, and his accurate perception of its historical importance

The Egyptologist

Subsequently, priests and other personnel were employed in the pyramid temples, where the king’s mortuary cult was performed after his death and burial. Around this nucleus, the community soon developed and lawyers, doctors, scribes, craftsmen, tradesmen and all the other elements of a thriving Society came together. It was in the Fayoum, in the late nineteenth century that the famous Egyptologist, Sir William Flinders Petrie, made one of his earliest and most significant discoveries. In 1888/ 9, he began his excavation of several sites in the area. These sites lay at the north and south ends of the great dyke of the Fayoum mouth.

The Capital of Egypt

South-west of Cairo, the modern capital of Egypt, on the west side of the Nile, there lies the province of Fayoum, the largest of the country’s oases, which owes its remarkable fertility both to springs of water, and to the Bahr Yusef, a channel through which the waters of the Nile flow into the famous lake of the oasis, known today as the ‘Birket El-Qarun’. In antiquity, as today, the area provided excellent hunting and fishing, and the kings and their courtiers visited the area regularly to enjoy these pastimes. The kings of the 12th Dynasty (1991–1786 BC) chose to build their capital city here, and to be buried in pyramids built nearby, on the edge of the desert. Their decision brought unprecedented activity and prosperity to the area; not only was a workforce employed to build and decorate each king’s pyramid and associated temples, but officials and overseers were brought in to supervise the work.

Superstitions

Superstitions about lucky and unlucky days are just as common as those about numbers, and Friday probably has more than any of them centering about it. In ancient Rome, the sixth day of the week was dedicated to Venus. When the northern nations adopted the Roman method of designating days, they named the sixth day after Frigg or Freya, which was their nearest equivalent to Venus, and hence the name Friday. The Norsemen actually considered Friday the luckiest day of the week; nut the Christians regarded it as the unluckiest. One reason for this is that Christ was crucified on a Friday. The Mohammedans say that Adam was created on a Friday, and according to legend, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday and they died on a Friday. Superstitious people feel that when you combine the unlucky number 13 with the unlucky day Friday, you’ve really got an unlucky day!

Islam

In the early part of the seventh century, a young Arab felt himself divinely inspired to found a new religion and go forth as its prophet. This great man whose name was Mohammed, sowed the seeds of a faith that has become one of the three foremost world religions. Mohammed called his religion Islam (which means submission to the will of God). It is known by this name to its more than 315,000,000 followers. The true believers are called Moslems. Islam is based largely on the Jewish and Christian religions. According to Mohammed, God revealed himself to man through his chosen prophets, among them Mohammed. God gave the Laws to Moses, the Gospel to Jesus, and the Koran to Mohammed.

Supreme Buddha

The followers of Buddha came to consider him a god and set up images of him and worshipped them. But Buddha himself didn’t believe there was s supreme god. He believed and taught that the soul of man passes after death to a higher or lower organism, according to his good or bad deeds during life. This transmigration of the soul into another body goes on through many circles until all desires is overcome. Then the soul enters Nirvana, or a state prefect peace. In order to reach this state, man must follow the Eight-Fold Path of Right Faith, by observing Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Thinking, and Right Meditation.

What is an Avalanche?

An avalanche is a sliding mass of snow, or ice, or wet earth and stones. An avalanche of earth and stones is a kind of landslide. It can happen even in regions without snow. A steep mountainside or bluff becomes thoroughly soaked with water, or is weakened in some other way. The earth can no longer stand in such a steep slope without sliding, and an avalanche begins.
This kind of avalanche is most common in the spring, when winter snow and ice melt and soak the ground below. It may also occur where man digs a roadway or mine along the base of a steep mountainside. This kind of landslide has often blocked mountain valleys and thereby created large lakes.