The year 2022 marks the bicentenary of the decipherment of hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion. This historical event marks the birth of modern Egyptology and the Egyptian Museum celebrates it with an exhibition dedicated entirely to the scriptures and language of Egyptian civilization. According to the myth, it was the god Thot who devised the art of writing, becoming patron of knowledge and the scribes. Writing is a fundamental tool for the administration of the country and, at the same time, an essential component of the Egyptian worldview and imagination, vehicle of religious thought and ritual, the representation of royal power and the social identity of the elite. “Thot’s Gift: Reading Ancient Egypt” traces the evolution of the scriptures (hieratic, Demotic, Coptic and hieroglyphic) and the variety of media on which they were written, opening a window on the environment, thought and society of ancient Egypt.
There are 170 exhibits on display, all coming from the Collections of the Egyptian Museum, with the exception of cuneiform tablets from the Royal Museums of Turin. On display are papyri, masterpieces of statuary, alabaster objects and wooden statuettes, evidence of that material culture through which Egyptologists and historians have reconstructed the biography not only of objects, but of the entire Nilotic civilization
Curated by Paolo Marini, Federico Poole and Susanne Töpfer, curators of the Egyptian Museum, the exhibition is the result of a scientific project conceived by the Director of the Museum, Christian Greco and is supported by the Council for the Enhancement of Artistic and Cultural Heritage of Turin. From 7 December 2022 to 7 September 2023. Buy the ticket QUI
