The Egyptian Execration Figurines of the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels: Conservation, Pigments and Digitisation

The Egyptian collection of the RMAH comprises about one hundred figurines made of unbaked clay, bearing curses written in hieratic script. They represent captured enemies and were buried ritually in order to symbolically neutralise foreign and domestic enemies and general threats. The red and black pigments used to inscribe these four millennia old objects are now, nearly 90 years after their discovery, faded or damaged. With these Egyptian execration figurines as a case-study, an on-going research project aims to develop new imaging techniques (using interactive 2D, 3D and multispectral images) that can improve the legibility of faded inscriptions and decorations. One of the objectives is indeed to identify and evaluate the factors that may affect the reflection of infrared and ultraviolet light. For the development of these techniques, the project sets out from a comprehensive analysis of the state of preservation of the objects. This article therefore presents the preliminary results of a study of the preservation of the surfaces, the composition of the materials, the possible interventions that the artefacts may have undergone and other factors affecting the legibility of the texts. This report will furthermore elaborate on the conservation reports of the objects and their classification in conservation categories, and provides preliminary observations on the clay and the pigments based on the results of X-Ray Fluorescence analyses.status: publishe

The Egyptian execration figurines of the royal museums of art and history, Brussels : conservation, pigments and digitisation

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Conservation, IR, UV and 3D-imaging: The Egyptian Execration Statuettes Project (EES). Final Report

The Egyptian collection of the RMAH comprises about one hundred execration figurines made of unbaked clay, bearing curses written in hieratic script (a cursive writing system related to hieroglyphs) and dating to the Middle Kingdom (c. 1850 BC). These represent captured (foreign) enemies and were buried ritually in order to symbolically neutralise foreign and domestic enemies and general threats. Nearly 90 years after their discovery, the red and black pigments used to inscribe these four millennia old objects are now faded or damaged. The Execration texts on these figurines are regarded as one of the most renowned collections of written sources for ancient Near Eastern studies, Egyptian history and Biblical studies for the early 2nd millennium BCE. When it comes to documenting every characteristic of an object in a highly detailed way, clay artefacts inscribed with ink and other pigments, such as the aforementioned figurines, pose a particular challenge. These three-dimensional media with curved surfaces hold traces of writing that, in some cases, have faded or have disappeared completely. The study of these objects is generally hampered by their poor state of conservation, any handling can result in a considerable loss of material (and therefore also valuable information). The EES project aimed to develop new imaging techniques (using interactive 2D, 3D and multispectral images) that can improve the legibility of faded inscriptions and enhance the decorations on clay objects. Combining 3D digitisation and multispectral imaging in a userfriendly and transportable system, that is also manageable by curators, conservators, researchers and other stakeholders in the museum, is a truly pioneering project. It must facilitate the management of recorded collections and offer numerous possibilities for historical and art-technical studies on these objects, while the future handling is limited to a minimum, thus ensuring their sustainability.nrpages: 66status: publishe