Re-imagining Egypt

The exhibition 'Re-imagining Egypt', held at Saffron Walden Museum, UK, between 26 November 2013 and 23 February 2014, aimed to challenge this narrow view. Community engagement was central to this process as almost 100 local school-age children were involved in a series of workshops at the museum that explored artefacts spanning the breadth of Egypt's past, from prehistory to present. This chapter discusses the theory, practice, and outcomes of this process; analyses 'Re-imagining Egypt' as a model for future community engagement in museums and describes whether the exhibition achieved its goal of representing Egypt as the sum of its many parts. Ancient Egypt provided a source of both intellectual challenge and national competition. Interestingly, some Egyptian museums are beginning to promote a different vision of Egypt's past compared to the orientalist rhetoric of the West.