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The Museum Shop

The shop is full of unique, fair-trade gifts inspired by the museum's collections, with price ranges to suit all pockets!

Gifts range from African tribal charms to Roman swords, Egyptian papyri to fossils. The shop also stocks a wide range of publications, including many written by the museum's own staff.

All profits from the shop are ploughed back into the Museum. Each purchase helps to offset the running costs of the building.

NOT FOR SALE!

On the left of the picture is the Manchester Museum's heaviest artifact, so rather than being on display in the gallery, it remains on the ground floor next to the shop.

Red Granite Column (Acc. 1780)

This red granite column stands 385cm tall. It dates to the Egyptian 19th Dynasty and was discovered at the site Ihnasya el-Medina (ancient Herakleopolis Magna) in Middle Egypt, and was donated to the Manchester Museum by the Egypt Exploration Fund (1887-1889).

The column is divided into three registers of decoration. At the top: the titles and cartouches of Ramesses II: in the middle, two scenes of Ramesses II offering incense to a ram-headed god named Her-shef. At the bottom: the titles and cartouches of Ramesses II, with the titles and cartouches of his son Merneptah incised in between.

A column such as this would have originally stood in the pillared, hypostyle hall, of a temple. This column was re-used in a temple constructed at Ihnasya el-Medina in the north of Egypt during the reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC).

It originally came from a much earlier temple, dating perhaps as far as back as the 5th Dynasty (2494-2345 BC). The top of the column, known as the capital, is missing. It would have taken the form of palm fronds, or leaves. The original height of the column was 10 cubits, and its diameter is 1.5 cubits. A cubit is around 45 cm.

The excavation was undertaken by Edouard Naville of the Egypt Exploration Society. Among the ruins Naville discovered the upper part of a seated colossal statue of Ramesses II which was given to the University of Pennsylvania, and six columns, the most complete of which (see the photograph above) was sent to the British Museum where it can today be seen in the Egyptian sculpture gallery. Another of the columns was sent to Manchester, and is currently on display in the Museum entrance.

The Egypt Exploration Society has released pictures from this excavation;

www.flickr.com/photos/egyptexplorationsociety/2684150606/...