The Ancient Egypt and East Asia National Programme, funded by The National Lottery Fund through the Heritage Lottery Fund, was a two year project working with partner museums across Scotland to discover and reveal new and interesting stories about their ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean collections.

Thanks to funding from the Esmeé Fairbairn Collections Fund, delivered by the Museums Association, the project undertook a national review of ancient Egyptian and East Asian collections.

The Ancient Egypt and East Asia National Programme included the touring exhibition Discovering Ancient Egypt. Loans to Perth Museum & Art Gallery, University of Aberdeen, Kirkcudbright Galleries and Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries supported displays of East Asian collections across the country. 

The project also supported a skills development programme, providing 99 training experiences to 71 museum staff and volunteers from 25 organisations across Scotland.

Some of the stories from the project are shared on the National Museums Scotland blog.

For more information about the National Programme, contact the Partnerships team.

Discovering Ancient Egypt

Bringing together fascinating objects and hidden stories from the collections of National Museums Scotland and museums around the country, this exhibition uncovered how ancient Egypt captivated Scotland over the past 200 years, as it still does today.

Through the intriguing stories of an archaeologist, an astronomer and an artist, Discovering Ancient Egypt brings to life the contribution Scotland has made to Egyptology and reveals important ancient Egyptian collections from across the country.

Discovering Ancient Egypt toured to Hawick Museum, Montrose Museum, the Baird Institute, Cumnock, Perth Museum & Art Gallery and the John Gray Centre, Haddington between March 2019 and April 2021.