The Festival of Libraries arrived in town from Wednesday to Sunday, and there were plenty of cultural attractions for visitors to enjoy. Among the most impressive was the "Queen" of Egyptology, who graced Bolton with her "presence" as an oil painting was brought to Bolton Library and Museum to reside in the Egyptology collection. The oil painting of Amelia Edwards is on temporary display in the museum’s Egyptology collection, and focuses on the writer and founder of Egypt Exploration Society (EES), and her relationship with Bolton’s Annie Barlow.
Bolton is home to the biggest local authority collection of Egyptian excavation artefacts, making it worthy of the town of culture title given this year. As part of the Festival of Libraries and in connection with the EES, a painting was unveiled ahead of a talk on Wednesday night, given by current director, Dr Carl Graves. Speaking after his talk, he said: “It has been really exciting to be here in Bolton, it’s always a good audience here.
“I think a lot of people thought it was going to be about Egypt, so it delivered a bit of a shock factor, as this is more about how we understand ancient Egypt, who we understand it through, and how we find relevance to those stories in the 21st century. “There are young people passionate about Egyptology but don’t find themselves reflected in it and maybe it is quite traditional, so I want to break this down by presenting a character from the past so, Amelia is a great example of th.
