Egyptian textile at Norwich Museum investigated

British Museum Blog (Faye Kalloniatis)

The rather unprepossessing museum storage box with its crumpled heap of ancient linen, had sat in the Norwich Castle stores for nearly a century. I became aware of it in 1999 when the Castle Museum was being refurbished and John Taylor, from the British Museum, had come to help with the Egyptian material.

He, as an expert, was greatly taken by the shroud – even from the little he could see of it in its creased state. But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago, when I started working on the Egyptian collection, that I remembered this small box and its contents.

The linen was clearly worth investigating – and the British Museum thought so too. So, happily, the project to conserve and study the shroud got underway.

As part of that I have had the fascinating task of piecing together the history relating to how the shroud came into the Norwich Castle collection. The story is an interesting and absorbing one.