Garstang Museum of Archaeology, Liverpool

Museum, Museums outside Egypt · also called Garstang Museum, University of Liverpool Garstang Museum, Liverpool Institute of Archaeology

The Garstang Museum at the University of Liverpool shows finds from John Garstang's own digs at Beni Hasan, Abydos, Naqada and Meroë. Its texts are mostly short and readable: offering formulas on stelae, the coffin of the soldier Userhat and a page of the Amduat on papyrus.

Point your camera at the signs

Signs to look for

Sedge M23sw The sedge opens almost every stela here: an offering that the king gives.
Bread on an offering mat R4ḥtp Bread on a mat (hotep) follows in the same formula.
Conical loaf X8di The conical loaf is the verb give in the offering formula.
Beer jug W22 The beer jug stands for beer in the list of offerings, and also appears drawn on the offering tables.

The story of Garstang Museum of Archaeology, Liverpool

Garstang founded the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology in 1904, and the collection comes mainly from the sites he excavated with it. Backers of each season received a share of the finds, so objects from the same tombs are spread across many museums. The museum took his name in 2004 and moved to new galleries on the ground floor of 14 Abercromby Square in 2014.

Middle Kingdom stelae are the core of what you can read. Most repeat the offering formula, asking a god to grant bread, beer, oxen and fowl to the dead person, whose name and titles end the text. A double-sided stela from Abydos (E.30) stands free in the gallery so you can walk round it.

The museum also has a Nubian collection from Meroë, where Garstang ran the first systematic excavations. Meroitic texts use a script of their own.

Inscriptions to see

Coffin of Userhat

The rectangular outer coffin of a soldier, found by Garstang at Beni Hasan in 1902 (E.512). Its text gives an offering formula and calls Userhat a soldier. A pair of eyes is painted on the side for him to look out. His inner coffin is in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

Stela of Neferemshety

A limestone stela from Naqada of the First Intermediate Period (E.88). Three lines of text ask Anubis for offerings for the sole companion Neferemshety. The reading of the name is uncertain. Below, a table holds a leg of beef, a fowl, bread and a beer jug.

Double-sided stela from Abydos

A Middle Kingdom stela carved on both faces (E.30), shown on a stand that lets you read the back.

Amduat papyrus of Tja-ty

A page of the Amduat, the book of the sun's night journey, for a singer of Amun-Re at Thebes in the 21st Dynasty (E.507).

Reading the hieroglyphs here

The museum is small and its opening days are limited. Check the University of Liverpool's page before you go.
The afterlife room is kept dim. Hold the phone still and let the camera expose before you box a sign.
Stelae repeat the same formula. Read one slowly, then find the same words on the next and only the names change.

Hiero Lens boxes the signs and names them, on your phone; nothing is uploaded. On worn stone, trace a sign over the photo.

Questions

What is in the Garstang Museum?

Finds from John Garstang's excavations in Egypt and Sudan and objects from the Near East, Greece and Rome. The Egyptian rooms cover daily life, writing and the afterlife.

Who was John Garstang?

A British archaeologist at the University of Liverpool who dug at Beni Hasan, Abydos, Naqada, Hierakonpolis, Esna and Meroë in the early twentieth century.

Is the Garstang Museum open to the public?

Yes, on set days. Opening is more limited than at a city museum, so check the University of Liverpool's page for the current days.

Where it is

Open in OpenStreetMap · Written from published sources and not yet checked on site by our team: displays and open tombs change.