![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Blogpic.jpg\")
Here are their thoughts on the experience:<\/p>\nTheir tasks in the project involved:<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 Analysing iconography and colour<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 Analysing text<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 Analysing the physical condition of the objects<\/p>\n
Here are their thoughts on the experience:<\/p>\n
When I came across this project, it struck a chord with my inner child who had always loved the idea of Ancient Egypt. Although I came into the project without much subject knowledge, I was eager to learn because of my love for museums. During the week that I spent at the Fitzwilliam Museum, I learned more than I could have ever expected about a topic that proved fascinating.<\/p>\n
By analysing the iconography, text and physical conditions of the coffins we were able to create descriptions that were more informative and helpful to completing object histories. As a volunteer that had less experience, I found that contributing any perspectives I had on these objects would often cause the people to re-assess their initial analysis. Being another set of eyes, I found that my attention to detail would mean that I would often spot things that had not been seen before. Working intimately meant that we got to handle the objects and really experience the object in all its wonder. I found my experience working with the coffins very exciting and eye-opening because I was exploring something in such a close environment that was new to me.<\/p>\n
I was \u2018that\u2019 kid who was obsessed with mummies and all the terrible movies associated with it. When the Coffins volunteering opportunity was presented to me, I immediately applied. While volunteering, I confirmed that yes, I still love Egyptian coffins, and I was able to study them in more detail than I ever had.<\/p>\n
Sophia and I compiled complete physical descriptions of the artwork on the ancient coffins, which would be informative to anyone wanting to study them. I personally found this an excellent opportunity to discover the use of iconography in context, and placement on the coffin. The use of colour was not something I had studied during my degree, but seeing how it was used on both richly- and poorly-decorated coffins was very interesting. Noting the damage on the coffins was also interesting as I learnt how objects were handled and often treated like trinket in the beginning of the discipline, compared to the care with which they are treated now.<\/p>\n
Find out more about volunteering with the University of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Ancient Egyptian coffins project at the Fitzwilliam Museum focuses on the textual and iconographic analysis of coffins or coffin fragments in pursuit of providing a more complete history to each object. Sophia Macpherson and Scarlett Long spent a week volunteering with the project, focusing on the richly-decorated coffins of Pakepu and Nespawershefyt. Their tasks in the project involved: \u2022\u00a0\u00a0… Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[369,156],"tags":[225,222,216],"coauthors":[266,267],"class_list":["post-8371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-museum-life","category-the-fitzwilliam-museum","tag-collections-care","tag-opening-doors","tag-society"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8371"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8857,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8371\/revisions\/8857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8371"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}