British Museum's Egyptian hieroglyphs exhibition to go on tour

Touring artefacts will help to 'share the story with other institutions', British Museum official says

The Rosetta Stone on display as part of the Hieroglyphs: Unlocking ancient Egypt exhibition at the British Museum. EPA

Part of a major exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of when a French scholar cracked the code of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is to go on tour in the UK in March.

Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt, on show at the British Museum in London, will come to a close on February 19 after a run of three months, having attracted more than 128,000 visitors.

The main exhibition features 240 objects, including the Rosetta Stone, which was taken off the main floor of the museum for the paid show.

A small sample of objects – but not the Rosetta Stone – will go on a year-long tour to three institutions in Hull, Lisburn and Torquay, said Ilona Regulski, curator of Egyptian written culture at the British Museum.

“The spotlight tour is often done after a big exhibition as a kind of legacy to share the story with other institutions,” she said.

“Because we only have 10 objects, the story is focusing a little bit more on how we understand ancient Egypt now so much more.”

The touring objects will include a small statue featuring a feast list and festivals celebrated at the beginning of the year.

'Hieroglyphs: unlocking ancient Egypt' exhibition - in pictures

“We have a papyrus, one of the Book of the Dead, because the afterlife is something visitors can associate with ancient Egypt,” Ms Regulski said.

“We have an ostracon [a piece of pottery used for a note] and a wooden drawing board the scribes used to practise hieroglyphs.

“So we can talk a little bit about education, learning, which I think for their audience is interesting, because their primary audience is families and younger audiences.”

The Rosetta Stone will return to its normal position in the British Museum, where it will again be free for the public to view.

The stone, one of the most famous objects in the British Museum, has a message carved into it in three writing systems — hieroglyphs, the Egyptian demotic script and ancient Greek — which helped scholars to decrypt the hieroglyph pictorial symbols.

The message was copied on to slabs placed in every temple in Egypt.

The Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 near the town of Rosetta, modern day Rashid, in the Nile Delta by soldiers during the French occupation of Egypt.

British Museum Egyptian hieroglyphs exhibition - in pictures

It later became the property of the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria, following Napoleon's defeat in 1801.

It was shipped to England the following year and presented to the British Museum by King George III.

“We, of course, talked a lot about whether we could take it off permanent display [for the exhibition], but we couldn’t tell the story of decipherment without the Rosetta Stone,” Ms Regulski said.

“It was an opportunity for us to elaborate a little bit of the story of the Rosetta Stone.

“So that was certainly the highlight and at the heart of the show. The exhibition is organised in one line, so you can see the Rosetta Stone from anywhere, from any spot.”

She said it was wonderful to see so many visitors engaging with the story of ancient Egypt and decipherment.

“Whenever I go into the exhibition, I see so many visitors reading the labels, looking at the objects and not just looking around but really engaging with the story," she said.

The spotlight tour will visit Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery from March 17 to June 18, before moving to the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum in Northern Ireland from June 28 to October 12.

The final destination will be Torquay Museum in Devon from October 21 to February 18, 2024.

An Egyptian-led petition to have the stone returned to the country recently attracted more than 100,000 supporters.