The Sherborne cartonnage is a new acquisition by the British Museum, acquired in 2018. However, it's not really "new" but an Ancient Egyptian cartonnage that's around 2000 years old. The cartonnage has had a long life, and isn't exactly in the state it was in when it was excavated back in the 1800s.

Luckily, the British Museum is full of world class conservators and curators who are developing new methods of restoring this amazing object in a meaningful, unobtrusive way so that it can be appreciated by our many visitors from all over the world.

In this first episode we hear from curator John Taylor, finding out how the coffin was excavated and first arrived in the UK. We also meet conservator Verena Kotonski who is taking on the mammoth task of conserving the cartonnage. You'll meet more characters along the way, but we don't want to give everything away in the first episode!

To be honest we have no idea how many episodes this series will have, each month the cartonnage has posed new 'challenges'. But it's also revealed more about life and death in Ancient Egypt. So we hope you will follow along as an already long project gets made even longer by unexpected global hand break turns.

The conservation and the making of this film was generously sponsored by the John S Cohen Foundation.

Images of Frederick Wingfield Digby and Sherborne Castle Copyright Sherborne Castle Estates.

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