Bridging Gaps: Archaeological Sources and Resources in Museums.

Abstract

Museums and archaeology share a common engagement to find, recover, safeguard, study and explicate the material world. This article is about the methods and scopes of museums regarding their use of archaeology as a source and a resource in exhibitions about Ancient Egypt and Nubia, and how archaeological finds and research in different academic fields may serve to generate, expand and sustain museums’ activities. Bridging the gaps between disciplines and laying the grounds for free-choice learning and for the elaboration and dissemination of knowledge is a first step. The second step has to do with a self-reflective turn we have been witnessing during the last decade or so in European museums holding archaeological material from non-Western countries. This new turn has to do with an increased awareness of the sustainability of such endeavours. Establishing a politics of trust between museums, cultural and research institutions and local populations is the next step.