Making Egypt
Two temporary exhibitions in and there’s a formula developing at the Young V&A. Which is absolutely fine, because it’s a good formula.
Like predecessor Japan: Myth to Manga, new opening Making Egypt combines clear, lucid historical and cultural storytelling with an intriguing collection of historic artefacts set alongside modern pop cultural items influenced by them.
Making Egypt is, naturally, concerned with Ancient Egypt, and over its three rooms the title is interpreted in three quite different ways. Wildest is the first room, which goes all in on the colourful and often contradictory world of their gods – a short recorded audio drama has them bickering over who literally made the world. The second room is more concerned with Egyptian writing, hieroglyphics and style, while the third covers buildings and statues – if you don’t leave it as an expert on the making of faience (a sort of turquoise ceramic that was huge 5,000 years ago) then you haven’t been paying attention.
The ravishing painted wooden sarcophagus of Princess Sopdet-em-haawt is the obvious showstopper
The mixing of contemporary objects with the ancient stuff is perhaps less effective than in Myth to Manga. In part, that’s because there’s far less cultural continuity between Ancient and modern Egypt than mediaeval and contemporary Japan. But the fact much of the modern stuff on display – be that a clip of the Brendan Fraser popcorn classic The Mummy, or a Games Workshop ‘Necrosphinx’ – has an orientalist...