Quid Pro Quo: Egyptian Artifact Distribution and the Bureaucracy of Gentlemen’s Promises
Early in 1926, C. T. Currelly, Director of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), sent a letter to the Mary Jonas, General Secretary of England’s Egypt Exploration Society (EES). Recalling a promise made to him by the famous excavator and papyrologist Bernard P. Grenfell some 20 years prior, Currelly asked Jonas that a collection of Arabic papyri be delivered to Toronto. These papyri, he claimed, were promised by Grenfell as a token of gratitude after Currelly had secured a substantial amount of money to support EES excavations. The request is notable, not because Currelly asked for papyri, but because it prompted internal debate over the handling and dispersal of Egyptian antiquities by the EES.
This paper argues that Currelly construed Grenfell’s promise according to the structural logic of EES artifact distributions, thereby ensuring that his request be given due consideration by EES officials. Crucial to this argument is my characterisation of EES artifact distributions as a quid pro quo arrangement – something received for something given. More specifically, the EES had committed to distribute Egyptian artifacts to given public museums in proportion to moneys given to the Society through subscription, a practice that has seen the dispersal of Egyptian artifacts (including papyri) to public institutions across the globe. At a time when museums and papyrologists alike are grappling with their complicity in the colonial appropriation of Egyptian cultural heritage and the trade in antiquities, this paper shows how the distribution of Egyptian artifacts was energised by a dynamic relationship between its official and public-facing commitment to distribute artifacts in proportion to subscription, “backroom” agreements negotiated by individual men, and in a bureaucracy mediated by the sitting EES Secretary.