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标题：One last frame of Middle Kingdom fragments
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作者：Stephen Quirke
期刊名称：British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES)
印刷版ISSN：2049-5021
电子版ISSN：2049-5021
出版年度：2016
卷号：23
页码：105-113
出版社：The British Museum
摘要：The fragments of more than one Middle Kingdom hieratic papyrus kept in a small box labelled 'Caton Thompson' (UC71095), as if from Gertrude Caton Thompson's Fayoum survey and excavation seasons of 1925-1927, are more plausibly identifiable by content as finds from one of the seasons directed by Flinders Petrie at Lahun. The fragments were conserved in 2003 by Renee Waltham, and their survival and accessibility are a double tribute to Renee and to Bridget Leach who trained her, enabling completion of the monumental task of conserving for Egyptology and a wider public the papyri from the Lahun 1889 seasons. In 1999-2002, a government grant through the Designation Challenge Fund enabled the Petrie Museum Manager Sally MacDonald to provide on-line access to the entire collections of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, amounting to some 80,000 inventory numbers. For digitisation, all objects had to be registered, including miscellaneous manuscript fragments in the post-war storage cupboards that surround the limited display space. At the time, one small set of papyrus fragments was in a 9cm square box for 'ILFORD special lantern plates'. As conservation was not possible prior to our 2002 project deadline, I assigned the number UC71095 to the unsorted box contents and the box interior was photographed for the online museum database. In subsequent years, the National Manuscripts Conservation Fund, UCL Alumni and the Friends of the Petrie Museum generously funded conservation of manuscripts, building on the conservation surveys carried out since the 1990s by Bridget. In addition, Bridget had trained Renee Waltham in papyrus conservation, and Renee undertook the sorting, stabilising, cleaning, realigning of hundreds of fragments, including UC71095, and their secure mounting in 3mm thick frames of glass. In publishing an Egyptological introduction to this one frame, the last group of Middle Kingdom fragments to be rescued from perilous storage conditions, I hope to give an inkling of my gratitude to Bridget and Renee for their combined and united story of dedication and success