Exhibition in Japan

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture in Japan together with The Embassy of Arab Republic of Egypt organized an exhibition of the "World's Four Great Civilization". This touring exhibition representing Mesopotamian, Indus, Chinese and Egyptian civilizations, is a review of human history, an overview over the societies and cultures and a link between the past and the future.

Dr. Gaballah, SCA Secretary General, present during the inauguration of the exhibition held in Tokyo National Museum from 2nd August to 1st October is expressing the event as "enhancing the cultural ties and friendship that exists between the two lands". The great scientific value of the exhibition resides in the comparative viewpoint the large audience will face the event with. The exhibition shall move to The Museum of Art, Ehime 21st October- 17th December 2000, then to The National Museum of Art, Osaka 13th January 2001 - 8th April and finally Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art 21st April- 1st July 2001.

Reserve Head: it was believed that the spirit in the form of a bird would visit the mummy lying in the tomb where a statue was usually placed to allow the spirit to recognize its owner. Some political or social reasons during the fourth century forced the replacement of the statues by these reserve heads.

Egypt's contribution is great as 123 various monuments representing different eras were carefully selected from the Cairo Museum's stores. Some are displayed for the first time as Yashimura, School of Human Sciences, Wasida University states: "There are many which have never been seen, not only in Japan but in any other country as well. It is in this sense that I hope everyone will enjoy the freshness of seeing a work for the first time." The exhibits classified in categories represent the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom and the Late Period.

The growing Japanese interest in the Ancient Egyptian Civilization is not to be neglected as it started "… in 1904 when Gaston Maspero, "Le Directeur Général du Service des Antiquités en Egypte" donated an Egyptian Mummy to the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum, actually the Tokyo National Museum." This was stated by Takeshi Gotoh, Curator Middle East Section, Tokyo National Museum who established an interesting comparative study between the four civilizations.

Seated statue of a lady Hekenu, 5th Dynasty. It's a rare statue representing a seated lady, wife of a high priest.

Though geographically isolated these civilizations were somehow connected " the Mesopotamian-like motifs that have been found in Egypt are not actually Mesopotamian, but have been partially influenced by Mesopotamian ideas." Mesopotamia was already a flourishing civilization when the Ancient Egyptian Civilization emerged some 5000 years ago while Indus and China Civilizations hadn't started yet. Takeshi Gotoh affirms later that, " It is not appropriate to regard Egyptian Civilization as more or less isolated society by placing a special emphasis on its peculiar characteristics. Certainly Egyptian civilization has striking peculiarities and many ancient relics and objects can easily be identified as Egyptian. But at the same time we must note that dynastic Egypt used to play an important role in the Middle and Near Egypt. It maintained political, economical and cultural exchanges with other civilizations without interruption." As far as language is concerned, there is a strong hypothesis that Phoenician, Proto-Sinaitic, Aramaic and Greek alphabets were influenced from the Egyptian signs. This hypothesis confirms that the Egyptian writing was the ancestor of a variety of moderns writing systems. The Supreme Council of Antiquities participated with 123 objects all significant enough to highlight important aspects of the Egyptian Civilization.

Family Statue of Khaemheset 5th Dynasty

Old Kingdom Khaemheset, royal architect and chief of sculptors during the Old Kingdom is represented with his wife and young son. The couple is seated on a high back chair while the son stands nude between his parents' legs with his finger in the mouth as childhood was generally represented in Ancient Egypt.