Following the mounting of an exhibition that received criticism from Egyptian officials, a team of archaeologists from a Dutch museum has been prohibited from conducting excavations in Egypt’s renowned Saqqara necropolis.
Following the debut of “Kemet: Egypt in Hip Hop, Jazz, Soul & Funk,” the Egyptian Antiquities Service’s head of international missions sent a letter to the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) in Leiden accusing it of “falsifying history” with its “Afrocentric” perspective, according to Dutch newspaper NRC on Monday.
The museum’s managing director, Wim Weijland, confirmed via email to CNN that the Egyptian government had refused to grant the organisation a permit for the upcoming Saqqara excavation season. Additionally, he attested that the journalist who penned the NRC piece had access to the email sent by the Egyptian government.
The pyramid of Djoser, Egypt’s oldest pyramid, is located in Saqqara, a huge burial site that is about 20 miles south of Cairo. Saqqara has also recently been the site of other significant discoveries.
For more than 40 years, the museum has conducted annual excavations there. Earlier this year, between February 19 and March 23, its most recent excavation campaign took place.
Weijland told reporters that the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden has been active in Saqqara since 1975. The museum has been denied permission to excavate here for the forthcoming season.
The “presumed ‘falsifying history’ in the current exhibition,” according to Weijland, is the reason the permit was denied. He also added that the museum is attempting to “open the dialogue” with the Egyptian authorities about the issue.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt’s secretary-general, Mostafa Waziri, did not respond to request for comment.
Weijland continued, saying that the goal of the “Kemet” exhibition is “to show and understand the depiction of ancient Egypt and the messages in music by black artists,” as well as “show what scientific, Egyptological research can tell us about ancient and Nubia.”
Historically, the ancient area of Nubia is located in northeastern Africa and stretches from the valley of the Nile in Egypt all the way to Khartoum in contemporary Sudan. The Nubian Kingdom of Kush, often known as the “Black Pharaohs,” originally resided in the region.
The website for the exhibition claims that it “embarks on a journey through music history” and examines “the influence of ancient Egypt and Nubia…in the works of a multitude of musicians of African descent, including icons of jazz like Miles Davis and Sun Ra and contemporary artists like Beyoncé and Rihanna.” The exhibition, which debuted in April and runs through September 3, “embarks on a journey through music history.”
The majority of the comments on the museum’s social media posts regarding the exhibition in recent days were from Egyptians who thought it was disrespectful. Some commenters included images of ancient Egyptian artwork with lighter skin tones next to darker ones, which they claim the museum is promoting.
The museum updated its website with a message containing more details on the content, context, and objectives of the display in response to the controversy. Additionally, it declared that it would take down disrespectful or racist remarks from its social media channels.
Visitors were urged to “visit the exhibition and form their own opinions,” and the museum stated that it “welcomes respectful dialogue on the cultural heritage of Egypt and Nubia.”
Egypt has protested the portrayal of its historical predecessors in the past. It recently criticised “Queen Cleopatra,” a Netflix documentary series that depicts the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt’s monarch as a woman of colour.
Former Egyptian minister of antiquities and Egyptologist Zahi Hawass stated in a recent article that “no one with even a little education could make a film showing Cleopatra as black.”
