Elephantine

26.04.2024 to 27.10.2024

James-Simon-Galerie. Berlin

The Nile Island Elephantine can be experienced through the special exhibition on the Museumsinsel, presented in the James-Simon-Galerie and in the Neues Museum.
Elephantine is an island on the Nile River near Egypt’s southern border. This trade and border centre was home to a uniquely diverse, multilingual, multicultural, and multi-religious population. It is the only place in the world where 4,000 years of unbroken cultural history can be traced through written sources.

Thousands of texts can be found on pieces of papyrus or clay shards written in ten different languages and scripts (including hieroglyphics, Aramaic, Coptic and Arabic). Today, they are held in 60 collections in 24 different countries, and have ben deciphered in a major European research project (ERC), before being translated and digitally catalogued.

In this comprehensive, world-first presentation, outstanding objects from Berlin’s collections will be shown alongside highlights from around the world. The diverse content of the texts will be contextualised with reference to archaeological finds and interpreted from a contemporary perspective, giving audiences a unique, first-hand experience of the island of Elephantine on the Museumsinsel Berlin.

Elephantine sonic composition by Yara Mekawei and Hassan Abou Allam is part of the exhibition. 

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