THE PROBLEM WITH MIN: A TEMPLE WALL, A MAN, A MEMBER

Object of the Week | Caitlin McCurdy

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During my undergraduate degree, I spent a lot of time studying one deity, the mysterious fertility/agricultural deity Min. He was of particular interest because his visual depictions often caused confusion, misinterpretation, and in the case of one temple wall fragment — outright censorship. This particular artifact is a segment of a temple wall from Koptos, a site in Upper Egypt and a major worship center for Min. Currently, the wall is housed in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, England. The Middle Kingdom wall depicts Pharaoh Senwosret I in a ceremonial run before Min. Min is shown standing tall before the pharaoh, fully erect.

Temple Wall UC14786 as it's currently displayed at the Petrie Museum of Art and Archaeology. (Photograph courtesy of Caitlin McCurdy)

The reasonings for his ithyphallic depictions have been debated at length. Some argue it demonstrates his, and by extension the pharaoh’s, sexual virility. This line of thinking is supported flimsily by the belief that a type of Egyptian lettuce — also an emblem of Min — works as an aphrodisiac. Without going on too long of an aside, this is not my belief. After doing an independent study project on Min, I believe he serves a more agricultural purpose. That he is always depicted erect, demonstrates more of a metaphorical seeding across the fields of Upper Egypt. 

Artist Depiction of Min. | Source

His presentation has proved to be the largest problem for his treatment in Egyptology museums. Not to mention that it’s basically impossible to consider his presentation as anything less than sexual for the modern viewer. It further complicates the understanding of this deity when one considers that this temple wall was found in 1893, during the height of Victorian morality in England. This time period invoked moral panic around the realms of nudity and the middle class.

The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology was founded during the height of Egyptomania in England and during extensive colonial projects in the country. Amelia Edwards, a British author and “collector” of Egyptian artifacts, donated her collection to University College London in 1892, establishing the museum and cementing the legacy of the man who would be its first director and namesake.

William Flinders Petrie, | Source

William Flinders Petrie was a founding figure in British Egyptology during the late 19^th century. There is ample evidence that Petrie allowed his own ideals of British purity and racial hierarchy to inform his work in Egypt. If modern museums are to interrogate their position as objective and neutral caretakers of non-Western artifacts, Petrie set out to do the exact opposite of that. His personal voice and views permeated the exhibitions he created.

The temple wall currently in question was considered a problem immediately upon its arrival in London. Petrie’s solution was to create a label just large enough to cover Min’s erection, and place it directly onto the slab. This was considered sufficient to appease the sensibilities of the university population, who, at the time, was the museum’s only and desired elite audience. Referred to as a museological fig leaf, the label remained where it was from 1893, allegedly into the 1970s.

Min Censored. | Source

The temple wall in the Petrie museum may be an extreme historical example of a curator or director’s personal beliefs preventing an unbiased display from taking place, yet it also highlights the potential pitfalls of displaying an ancient culture from a modern perspective. Egyptology in itself is a colonial institution, its foundation taking place during Britain’s violent imperial actions in Egypt. How do you begin to decolonize an institution such as this? The knowledge of ancient Egypt is informed by a history of unequal contact between a colonial power and the modern civilization living where the ancient once stood. If Min’s treatment in the Petrie museum can reveal anything, it’s that the colonial roots of museums have perhaps prevented some knowledge from being fully revealed because the knowledge contained information considered unacceptable by colonial power’s social mores.