Call 'Em Like Museum with Eric Johnson | Everyday life & afterlife in ancient Egypt (with Renée Dreyfus)

If you learned about ancient Egypt in school, you likely heard a lot about pharaohs, tombs, and elaborate death rituals. A new exhibition at the de Young Museum juxtaposes this familiar royal history with the lives and afterlives of ordinary citizens. Here, you'll find golden jewelry and shining sarcophagi, but also everyday objects you have likely never seen before: a baby's rattle, a stone headrest, and a jar for cured meat.

"We are learning so much more about how people lived who were not royalty," says Renée Dreyfus, the curator in charge of ancient art at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Renée oversaw the American debut of "Treasures of the Pharaohs," which expands our understanding of ancient Egyptian culture, fueled by archaeologist Zahi Hawass's recent excavation of the Golden City near Luxor.

Today on Call 'Em Like Museum, we talk about how ordinary people lived, worked, and prepared for an afterlife in ancient Egypt; Renée's collaborative work with global institutions like the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Luxor Museum; and what she has learned during her remarkable 50 years working at FAMSF. Plus: Why the most interesting object in the whole exhibition might just be a wooden chair.

Full transcript of this episode

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This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction
(04:07) - What museums means to Renée
(07:02) - Misconceptions about Ancient Egypt
(13:37) - The Golden City & regular people
(22:55) - Renée's favorite object in the exhibition
(31:46) - Curating King Tut 30 years apart
(37:34) - The Etruscans exhibit
(40:29) - What to buy in a museum gift shop

Music: www.purple-planet.com

Images:
Several images courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The de Young Museum
The Legion of Honor
Vincent Price
Brooklyn Museum
The Golden City of Aten
Amenhotep III
Zahi Hawass
Sitamun

Videos:
Video from Treasures of the Pharaohs, courtesy of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Johnson

Podcast editor, producer, and consultant at LightningPod.fm | Working with entrepreneurs, journalists, businesses, and more to achieve their podcasting goals

Guest

Renée Dreyfus

Renée Dreyfus is the George and Judy Markus Distinguished Curator in Charge of Ancient Art at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

What is Call 'Em Like Museum with Eric Johnson?

Call 'Em Like Museum is a weekly podcast exploring how museums really work, and why we love them. Host Eric Johnson talks with museum directors, curators, experts, and passionate fans about what drives them, from homegrown passion projects to world-famous institutions. Each episode digs into museum curation, exhibit design, and the visitor experience — plus the essential question: What's actually worth buying in the gift shop? Season One spotlights museums in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Walt Disney Family Museum, the de Young Museum, and the Winchester Mystery House.

0:00:00.320,0:00:05.760
You have everyday life.
We are learning so much more

0:00:05.760,0:00:11.600
about how people lived who were not royalty.
That’s Renée Dreyfus, the curator in charge of

0:00:11.600,0:00:14.480
ancient art at the de Young
and the Legion of Honor.

0:00:14.480,0:00:19.440
Or, as she’s known on social media…
Hey, chat. It's your girl Renée,

0:00:19.440,0:00:24.320
Queen Baddie of ancient art.
Renée oversaw a new exhibit at the de Young

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Museum called Treasures of the Pharaohs.
You know, I think a lot of people

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are attracted to ancient Egyptian art
and culture because they were the people who,

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it seems, found a way to live forever.
If you learned about ancient Egypt in school,

0:00:41.520,0:00:44.880
you probably talked a lot
about two things: The kings,

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and death: Embalming, mummies,
tombs, the Book of the Dead,

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weighing your heart against a feather.
If everything was done correctly,

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if they were able to prove that
they had led a decent life,

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they could find their way to immortality.
Treasures of the Pharaohs talks about

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all of that, of course.
But it juxtaposes the golden

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jewelry and sarcophagi with everyday items,
including some really cool finds from the

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recently excavated Golden City.
These were the ordinary people.

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They were working for the
pharaoh and they had their jobs.

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They were creating the jewelry.
They had bakeries, they had kitchens,

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but they also had the homes
of the people who lived there.

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This is Call ‘Em Like Museum,
a podcast about how museums work,

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and why we love them.
I’m Eric Johnson.

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Today on the podcast: What was it like to be
one of the normies surrounding the pharaohs?

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Can a topic as popular and intensely
studied as Ancient Egypt still surprise us?

0:01:50.960,0:01:55.360
And why is Renée’s favorite object
in the exhibition this chair?

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She’ll tell us about all of
that and more, right after this.

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This episode is sponsored by Transistor.fm.
If you are starting a podcast,

0:02:03.840,0:02:07.840
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Upload your audio or video and they'll

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Go to Transistor.fm for a 14-day free trial.

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On this podcast, we believe
that everyone's experience with

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museums is deeply personal,
and that's why we want

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to hear your museum stories.
If you've got one, and I bet you do,

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please submit it at our website, likemuseum.com.
Just go to the website, likemuseum.com,

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and click "submit a museum
story" at the top of the page.

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It might just make it into
a future episode. Thanks.

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Your formal title at Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco is the George

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and Judy Markus Distinguished
Curator in Charge of Ancient Art.

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Correct.
But on social media,

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you have a different title, I believe.
Oh, you've got Queen Baddie in the house!

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That's right.
Oh yes, you're right.

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We've got the Queen Baddie of Ancient Art.
I thought I was in disguise, but I guess not.

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“The Romans were just the
side piece of the Etruscans,

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absolutely mogging the Mediterranean — mogging —
who were mogging the Mediterranean

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for 1,000 years.”
Well, your highness,

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thank you for being here. Yes.
So Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,

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for folks who don't know, there's two museums.
There's the de Young Museum

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and the Legion of Honor.
You are celebrating a milestone anniversary,

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if I'm not mistaken, this year.
How long have you worked there?

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It's 50 years, 5-0.
And just this past year we celebrated the

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100th birthday of the Legion of Honor Museum,
which is where my ancient

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art collection is housed.
And I thought, oh, 100 years, big deal.

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I've been there half of that time. (laugh)
When you look at the timescale,

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it doesn't feel like so much.
No, it didn't seem so much.

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Well, I do want to spend most of our time
talking about Treasures of the Pharaohs,

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which is the new exhibition at the de Young.
But first I want to talk about

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your personal history
and relationship with museums.

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Nice.
A question that I ask everyone to start off

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is what does the word "museum" mean to you?
Years ago, I had a friendship with Vincent Price.

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You may remember him.
Oh, sure.

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He wasn't as scary as you might
think, and so we became good friends.

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I asked him that same question,
"What is a museum to you?"

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And he said, "It's a place where you
go to be surprised." And I love that.

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I've never forgotten that he said that.
It's educational, it's entertaining,

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but also surprising.

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You go in to a museum and even if you've
been at that museum before many times,

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there's always something that's
going to catch your attention

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that will be exciting and interesting
and maybe reach a different

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level of understanding,
something that excites you, makes you happy,

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or makes you think of the
world in a different way.

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I think that's what he meant when
he said be prepared to be surprised.

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It changes you on a molecular
level. It changes you as a person.

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That's exactly right. It changes
you, and certainly for the better.

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Yes, I hope so. And what's your
first memory of going to a museum?

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Oh, I love this.
I grew up in New York City

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and my first memory of a
museum was the Brooklyn Museum.

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My parents took me there.
The Brooklyn Museum has an incredible

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collection of ancient art — Near Eastern,
Egyptian, classical — and those were the

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areas they couldn't pull me away from.
Of course, growing up and then able to

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go to museums on my own,
there was always the Met.

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I was really lucky.
And then I went to school in Boston,

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which had a world-class museum.
I've been lucky with

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where I've lived and the places that ...
They became like second homes for me now.

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Since I love museums so much, it was
always my dream to work in a museum.

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I feel so lucky to have been able to work at
the Fine Arts Museums for the past 50 years.

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It's exactly what I always wanted to do,
which is why I'm still here and working.

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I am so glad that you're here.
I'm so glad you've been

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doing this for all these years.
You made such a special impression on San

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Francisco through the work that you've done.
So with that, let's transition. Let's talk about

0:07:02.160,0:07:04.080
Treasures of the Pharaohs.
Cool.

0:07:04.080,0:07:08.720
Usually when I talk to people on this podcast,
one of the questions I save for the end of the

0:07:08.720,0:07:11.920
conversation is what do people
get wrong about your museum?

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But I think with this exhibition,
a great place to start is ancient Egypt

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is so fascinating to so many people.
What do people get wrong about it?

0:07:20.320,0:07:28.960
Oh, I think a lot of people are attracted
to ancient Egyptian art and culture

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because they were the people who, it
seems, really found a way to live forever.

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I mean, it was such a basic
principle of their belief system

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that if everything was done correctly,

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if they were able to prove that
they had led a decent life,

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that they could find their way to immortality.
It's something that a lot of cultures have,

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but the Egyptians,
they had it as a

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basic principle throughout their lives
that they were going to be able to live

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forever in a blessed land
where they would be

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happy and communicate with gods.
What a shame, they didn't live forever,

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although they had a saying that to speak
one's name is to make them live again.

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And so, so many times when
I've done an Egyptian show

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and it's about the queen who would be king
— Hatshepsut — or Ramses or King Tutankhamun,

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you're speaking their name.
And in the Egyptian belief system,

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speaking the name is to make them live again.
I love that.

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A couple reactions when I've been to the
Treasures of the Pharaohs exhibition.

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I've been there twice so far.
When I was there the second time,

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I was looking at the wall
where it had the timeline of the different

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periods of ancient Egyptian history,
and it really struck me how

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big of a topic ancient Egypt is.
We're talking about 3,000 years of history.

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How do you, working in ancient art,
how do you communicate the scale of that time?

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Because it's not just ...
When I say ancient Egypt,

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I'm really referring to so
many people for so much time.

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I installed an exhibition one time.
It was in 2002 and it was at the Legion of Honor,

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and it was Egyptian art from pre-dynastic,
from the earliest dynastic period all

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the way through into Roman times.
We're talking 3,000 years of history,

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but also 3,000 years of art history.
And that exhibition was laid out chronologically

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so that you're walking through time,
you could see similarities in the Egyptian style

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and the way they presented their
beliefs and their everyday life.

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That was a very interesting way to present the art
because you could see similarities.

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Sometimes they went back in time because
that was a wonderful period of time

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when Egypt was strong and they
want to go back to that period.

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So they do archaicizing.
They're going back in time to

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present the art the way it was at an
earlier period because that's the

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way they like to think of themselves,
identifying with a golden age perhaps.

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This exhibition instead
presents a different narrative.

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The chronology is not as important,
although we do have things from the first

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dynasty through the 3,000 years of history.
But the concept that we start with is

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kind of the top of the pyramid,
which is divine kingship, the most

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important person in Egypt throughout time.
And this goes back to the earliest history

0:11:28.240,0:11:33.600
that we have about ancient Egypt,
that the king was the ruler,

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but he was also a god.
One of Renée’s favorite objects in the exhibition

0:11:38.320,0:11:44.560
is this schist sculpture of the king Menkaure,
who had the smallest pyramid at Giza.

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Here’s what she said when
we looked at it in person.

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“And he's shown striding forward.
He's in the middle, and it's made out

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of this gorgeous black schist,
which is very hard to carve.

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But he's wearing the crown of Upper
Egypt, and he wears the royal kilt.

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And he's surrounded on both sides
by figures that represent deities.

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On his right, our left, is the goddess Hathor,
and you know that because of her cow's

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horns and the sun disk that she wears.
And on his left side — of lesser importance,

0:12:24.240,0:12:32.000
because you see he's smaller in size —
is the personification of the region of Thebes,

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which is where Menkaure's capital city is.
It tells you in one glance that the

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pharaoh is not only a ruler,
but he is a divine ruler,

0:12:45.520,0:12:51.520
and he is at home with the gods,
and they accept him as one of their own.”

0:12:51.520,0:12:59.280
And then to understand the social
history of the ancient Egyptians,

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we then spread it out and we talk about
those people who were close to the king,

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those people who helped him uphold the
sense of he was in charge of everything:

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their religious beliefs, their daily life,
what their thoughts are about

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death and the afterlife.
So we go through the social

0:13:25.280,0:13:30.560
hierarchy in this exhibition,
and because of that,

0:13:30.560,0:13:37.440
the chronological history isn't as critical.
And as you work farther down the pyramid,

0:13:37.440,0:13:40.640
to use your phrasing there,
one of the rooms of this

0:13:40.640,0:13:45.440
exhibition is about the Golden City.
Could you talk about what that room means to you

0:13:45.440,0:13:51.760
and why you wanted to juxtapose the objects
from the Golden City with the pharaohs?

0:13:51.760,0:13:56.880
It's part of the section in the
people surrounding the king.

0:13:56.880,0:14:03.840
And in fact, the Golden City
is a brand new discovery.

0:14:03.840,0:14:13.680
It was found by Zahi Hawass, the eminent
Egyptologist from Egypt, and his team.

0:14:13.680,0:14:20.320
They were looking for the
mortuary temple of King Tut,

0:14:20.320,0:14:24.320
and they had a clue where to
find it and they started digging.

0:14:24.320,0:14:33.600
And instead they found the walls of a city that is
so well preserved that it looks like people

0:14:33.600,0:14:38.560
left it maybe yesterday.
It's an extraordinary city.

0:14:38.560,0:14:46.480
And as they're excavating, now, this
extraordinary discovery — I mean,

0:14:46.480,0:14:52.880
it's the most significant discoveries
maybe since King Tut's tomb in the 1920s.

0:14:52.880,0:14:58.880
It really is a city that is
comprised of a residential area,

0:14:58.880,0:15:08.640
an administrative area, and workshops.
So the workshops are the people who

0:15:08.640,0:15:17.760
prepared everything that the king needed.
This was a king whose name was Amenhotep III.

0:15:17.760,0:15:26.960
He lived during the golden age of Egypt.
He was a new-kingdom pharaoh of the 18th dynasty.

0:15:26.960,0:15:35.600
What is significant about it is
that Amenhotep III and his wife,

0:15:35.600,0:15:43.348
Queen Tiye, had a son whose name
was Amenhotep IV, not surprisingly.

0:15:43.348,0:15:46.560
Makes sense.
But he changed his name to Akhenaten,

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and he's the pharaoh who said there's
only one god and not a plethora of gods,

0:15:53.680,0:15:58.720
the many, many gods that the Egyptians worshiped.

0:15:58.720,0:16:05.120
One wonders, you have Akhenaten
and his wife Nefertiti,

0:16:05.120,0:16:14.720
and after Amenhotep III died,
they moved the capital city from near

0:16:14.720,0:16:22.000
where this new Golden City
was discovered in Luxor.

0:16:22.000,0:16:26.400
They move it to Amarna.
And when they moved to Amarna,

0:16:26.400,0:16:31.520
people pick up and they follow him.
These are all his workers.

0:16:31.520,0:16:36.080
They leave a lot of things behind.
And people always ask me,

0:16:36.080,0:16:43.440
"You're showing things that were
important to the upper classes.

0:16:43.440,0:16:47.200
What about daily life? What
about the ordinary people?"

0:16:47.200,0:16:50.000
These were the ordinary people.
They were working for the

0:16:50.000,0:16:57.360
pharaoh and they had their jobs.
They were creating the jewelry, which by the way,

0:16:57.360,0:17:03.600
Zahi Hawass thinks is the jewelry
that was made there is was what was

0:17:03.600,0:17:06.720
found in King Tut's tomb.
Wow.

0:17:06.720,0:17:15.520
But also they had bakeries, they had kitchens,
they had the administrative sections,

0:17:15.520,0:17:19.920
but they also had the homes
of the people who lived there.

0:17:19.920,0:17:25.760
In the exhibition, you'll see a baby's rattle.
I mean, there were children's toys.

0:17:25.760,0:17:31.760
There was a manufacturing area where
they were creating children's toys.

0:17:31.760,0:17:39.520
They created the amulets that people
were using and the king was using.

0:17:39.520,0:17:48.800
You have everyday life, you have pots
that were made to hold food and drink.

0:17:49.680,0:17:56.480
We are learning so much more about
how people lived who were not royalty.

0:17:56.480,0:18:03.520
But at the same time, we're learning
that it wasn't just Akhenaten who said

0:18:03.520,0:18:10.000
that there was only one god and it
was the Aten, the disc of the sun.

0:18:10.000,0:18:18.240
We're seeing that it was already in place during
the time of Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye.

0:18:18.240,0:18:27.200
So it's a significant discovery in so many ways,
and it's continuing to give because

0:18:27.200,0:18:32.400
it's still being excavated now.
And this is the first time that any

0:18:32.400,0:18:38.000
of these objects have been out of Egypt
and probably the first time that

0:18:38.000,0:18:43.040
they've actually been on view.
I'm very excited about this being

0:18:43.040,0:18:46.000
in the exhibition.
As you should be.

0:18:46.000,0:18:50.560
That's a perfect segue to my next question,
which is that most of the objects here — correct

0:18:50.560,0:18:52.080
me if I'm wrong —
came from the Cairo

0:18:52.080,0:18:55.040
Egyptian Museum and there's others
that came from the Luxor Museum,

0:18:55.040,0:18:59.120
the ones that from this new Golden City.
Could you talk about your relationship

0:18:59.120,0:19:03.760
with these other museums?
How do you convince them to trust

0:19:03.760,0:19:06.800
you with their country's history
and their museum collection?

0:19:06.800,0:19:09.840
I mean, these are so important
to these Egyptian museums.

0:19:09.840,0:19:13.680
Let me tell you first how I
found out about this exhibition.

0:19:13.680,0:19:19.360
Please.
I'm always on the lookout for some exhibition

0:19:19.360,0:19:25.040
that might have a phenomenal object list.
And I had a phone call

0:19:25.040,0:19:30.720
with Zahi Hawass and he said,
"Have I got an exhibition for you."

0:19:30.720,0:19:36.880
I mean, this is somebody I've known
since, I don't know, he was a student.

0:19:36.880,0:19:40.960
And I said, "Well, I'd like
to see the object list."

0:19:40.960,0:19:44.560
And they sent the object list and
all of a sudden I'm looking at

0:19:44.560,0:19:51.520
all of the stars from the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo in Tahrir Square.

0:19:51.520,0:20:00.640
And then I'm seeing the Golden City objects,
and then I'm seeing the tomb groups from two

0:20:00.640,0:20:06.720
specific tombs that are phenomenal,
and we can talk about those.

0:20:06.720,0:20:17.760
And then to find out that Tareq Al Awadhi —
he was a former director of the Cairo

0:20:17.760,0:20:24.880
Museum — that he has chosen the objects.
So you have the actual director

0:20:24.880,0:20:29.600
who is a well-trained
Egyptologist and archeologist,

0:20:29.600,0:20:36.480
he is the person who decided on the
themes that I mentioned earlier.

0:20:36.480,0:20:41.040
And I looked at it and I said,
"This is a perfect way to be

0:20:41.040,0:20:49.440
able to present life in ancient Egypt,
looking at the social hierarchy, but then

0:20:49.440,0:20:54.960
looking to see these splendid objects.
Some of them are the real iconic

0:20:54.960,0:21:00.880
works that people go to Egypt to see.
These are really splendid works of art.

0:21:00.880,0:21:08.400
The exhibition was first on view in Rome,
and it was organized by a company

0:21:08.400,0:21:14.640
in Rome that does exhibitions.
They hadn't thought of bringing it to America,

0:21:14.640,0:21:20.160
but when we had the chance to go
and look at the exhibition in Rome,

0:21:20.160,0:21:27.280
immediately we knew we needed to sign up for it.
So we are the first institution, the first museum,

0:21:27.280,0:21:35.920
to have these objects in America.
After we close, it goes to the Kimball Museum.

0:21:35.920,0:21:40.400
Those are the two museums
that are in the United States,

0:21:40.400,0:21:46.320
and then it goes traveling elsewhere.
So I just think we're so lucky to

0:21:46.320,0:21:50.160
have these objects.
And it's never easy to

0:21:51.760,0:22:00.320
negotiate with the Egyptian government,
but in the end, they were so thrilled

0:22:00.320,0:22:05.360
with our installation.
Zahi Hawass said to them,

0:22:05.360,0:22:13.120
"It's a hundred times better than Rome."
And of course, I knew it would be. (laugh)

0:22:13.120,0:22:16.240
I like the self-confidence there.
You know what you're doing by now.

0:22:16.240,0:22:21.840
Yeah, you're talking to Queen Baddie, so yeah.
Hey, if you're enjoying the episode,

0:22:21.840,0:22:25.920
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0:22:25.920,0:22:29.760
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0:22:33.440,0:22:37.040
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0:22:37.040,0:22:40.720
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0:22:48.320,0:22:52.640
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0:22:52.640,0:22:55.680
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0:22:55.680,0:22:59.280
Can you think about your favorite object?
I know it's impossible to pick just one,

0:22:59.280,0:23:02.080
but think about a favorite
object in the exhibition.

0:23:02.080,0:23:05.520
If you imagine that we're walking
towards it, what do we see?

0:23:05.520,0:23:08.160
What do you notice about it?
How does it make you feel?

0:23:08.160,0:23:12.400
Okay.
We're going into a room

0:23:12.400,0:23:22.320
that is a gallery full of objects
that come from the tomb of the

0:23:22.320,0:23:29.600
in-laws of Amenhotep III.
Their names are Yuya and Thuya.

0:23:29.600,0:23:34.080
There's a big gold coffin of Thuya
in the middle of that gallery,

0:23:34.080,0:23:43.520
and it takes you like a magnet to go and see it.
It's absolutely extraordinary with its inlays and

0:23:43.520,0:23:49.680
how alive the face looks.
But on your way there,

0:23:49.680,0:23:56.800
you pass a piece of furniture
and it's made out of wood and

0:23:56.800,0:24:03.200
it has gold and silver inlay.
In the backrest of the chair,

0:24:03.200,0:24:09.840
you see the owner of it.
It's a throne that belonged to their grandchild,

0:24:09.840,0:24:17.280
Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye's daughter.
Sitamun is her name.

0:24:17.280,0:24:22.960
And you see her two times on the backrest,
sitting in a chair just like this one.

0:24:22.960,0:24:30.880
She was a princess. This was her throne.
It's an absolutely beautiful example. It is so ...

0:24:30.880,0:24:35.280
I mean, the condition, it's
intact and it's gorgeous.

0:24:36.160,0:24:40.560
It's a piece of furniture that I've
known for a really long period of time,

0:24:40.560,0:24:46.640
and here it is in that gallery.
And what makes it special,

0:24:46.640,0:24:52.720
and I'm sure I'm reading into it
a little bit but not too much,

0:24:52.720,0:25:02.480
is her grandparents are being laid to rest
and they are buried in the Valley of the Kings,

0:25:02.480,0:25:06.640
even though they're not royalty.
Remember, it's their daughter,

0:25:06.640,0:25:10.400
Tiye, who is royalty,
and I can just hear her saying to her husband,

0:25:10.400,0:25:14.880
Amenhotep III, "They're my
parents and I want them buried as

0:25:14.880,0:25:23.440
if they were royalty," and in fact they were.
Here's their granddaughter believing

0:25:23.440,0:25:32.800
that they're going to have a blessed afterlife,
wanting them to remember her throughout eternity,

0:25:32.800,0:25:36.080
knowing that this was an object
that was precious to her.

0:25:36.080,0:25:43.360
She used it. There's signs of wear.
It makes me think that she loved her grandparents

0:25:43.360,0:25:49.840
and wanted them to remember her.
It's a mesmerizing object,

0:25:49.840,0:25:58.880
especially when you consider why would it
have been found in the tomb of Tuya and Yuya?

0:25:58.880,0:26:05.280
They had lots of precious objects in their tomb,
but this is one that was put there by their

0:26:05.280,0:26:07.200
granddaughter.
I assume for

0:26:07.200,0:26:11.920
any grandparent visiting the exhibition —
both the grandparents and for the mother-in-laws

0:26:11.920,0:26:15.440
that are visiting the exhibition
— take notes in these rooms.

0:26:15.440,0:26:24.720
And anybody who loved their grandparents.
Many of us had grandparents who were significant

0:26:24.720,0:26:27.120
in our lives.
Yes.

0:26:27.120,0:26:32.480
So anyhow, I love that piece,
but every gallery has something

0:26:32.480,0:26:38.480
that is significant and beautiful, and
I could go on and on about, I'm afraid.

0:26:38.480,0:26:42.640
What's a small detail in the
exhibition that most people would miss,

0:26:42.640,0:26:51.920
but which you absolutely love?
There's a stone carving of the mayor

0:26:51.920,0:27:02.880
of Thebes during the time of Amenhotep II.
So Amenhotep II, he ruled from Thebes,

0:27:02.880,0:27:09.920
and the mayor of Thebes was a man named Sennefer.
There is a statue of Sennefer

0:27:09.920,0:27:19.840
and his wife and their child,
a little diminutive figure standing between them,

0:27:19.840,0:27:28.400
but they have their arms around each other.
Now, there are statues that show the husbands

0:27:28.400,0:27:35.040
and wives with their arms around each other,
but the sculptor — you have to walk around

0:27:35.040,0:27:40.640
to the back of the sculpture
— and the sculptor has carved

0:27:40.640,0:27:48.800
the upper part of the throne they're sitting at
so that you could see their hands around each

0:27:48.800,0:27:51.360
other's shoulders.
Yes.

0:27:51.360,0:28:00.400
A sign of love and also respect because there are,
what, eight rows of Egyptian

0:28:00.400,0:28:05.840
hieroglyphs on the back.
On the side of Sennefer

0:28:05.840,0:28:15.040
are his four lines of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
On his wife's side, there are the hieroglyphs,

0:28:15.040,0:28:19.680
and she had a significant
role as well in the entourage,

0:28:19.680,0:28:25.680
in the king's ... the people
who surrounded the king.

0:28:25.680,0:28:32.080
It's all about her.
It's important to think that

0:28:32.080,0:28:39.760
there are women in ancient Egypt
who had the respect and the

0:28:39.760,0:28:47.360
appreciation that they were shown,
in this case, equivalent in some ways

0:28:47.360,0:28:50.240
to their husbands.
Was that common?

0:28:50.240,0:28:55.840
Was that typical in surviving ancient Egyptian
art for women to be depicted as equal,

0:28:55.840,0:28:59.280
of the same size, or of
equal importance as the men?

0:28:59.280,0:29:01.840
Not at all.
You'll see them,

0:29:01.840,0:29:07.920
oftentimes the woman has her arm around the man,
but he doesn't have his around her.

0:29:07.920,0:29:13.280
But also in these couple
sculptures, you might just hear,

0:29:13.280,0:29:17.760
if there's hieroglyphs, you might
just hear about the husband,

0:29:17.760,0:29:23.920
the man, not necessarily the woman as well.
So when you see something like that

0:29:23.920,0:29:30.640
and there is this movement towards
equality, it's not 100% equality.

0:29:30.640,0:29:35.280
He's wearing necklaces
around his neck that are rows

0:29:35.280,0:29:41.440
and rows of gold beads that have
been given to him by the king.

0:29:41.440,0:29:46.240
He was so admired and respected
and appreciated by the king

0:29:46.240,0:29:55.120
that he gave Sennefer rewards of those necklaces.
But sometimes, and you'll see in the exhibition,

0:29:55.120,0:30:01.760
there's a relief sculpture that show the
women can have those necklaces as well.

0:30:01.760,0:30:06.480
It is a patriarchal society.
There's one sculpture in the

0:30:06.480,0:30:15.920
exhibition showing the queen who would be king
— another Queen Battie — who made herself king

0:30:15.920,0:30:20.560
over Egypt: Hatshepsut.
And she has a beard on,

0:30:20.560,0:30:22.640
if I remember correctly, right?
She's wearing a beard.

0:30:22.640,0:30:28.560
To be a king, you had to look like a king.
And the attributes of kingship were you had

0:30:28.560,0:30:33.040
to have the full spirit of kingship,
you had to wear the kilt,

0:30:33.040,0:30:38.480
you had to wear a crown or a head
covering of some kind, but nothing else.

0:30:38.480,0:30:44.080
And so she is shown as a man.
She was not a cross dresser in real life,

0:30:44.080,0:30:48.960
and there are images of her
where she's dressed as a woman,

0:30:48.960,0:30:54.880
but in many of the statues
where they were placed in important

0:30:54.880,0:31:00.480
areas within the kingdom,
she could be shown as

0:31:00.480,0:31:05.600
a man and was shown as a man.
Thinking about all of the different exhibitions

0:31:05.600,0:31:09.680
that you've worked on about
various ancient civilizations,

0:31:09.680,0:31:13.440
what have you not been able to do yet?
Do you have a white whale,

0:31:13.440,0:31:16.640
sort of a focus or a story
that you want to tell that you haven't

0:31:16.640,0:31:22.640
been able to bring to America yet?
Yes. I want to do an ancient

0:31:22.640,0:31:27.120
Near Eastern exhibition.
I've done classical shows.

0:31:27.120,0:31:32.320
The Etruscan exhibition that
just closed was monumentally

0:31:32.320,0:31:39.120
important to express the culture of the Etruscans.
I've done the Egyptian shows.

0:31:39.120,0:31:46.480
I'm the only curator who did the King
Tut show two times, 30 years apart.

0:31:46.480,0:31:50.880
Yes. The one that came to the de Young
in 1979, if I'm not mistaken, right?

0:31:50.880,0:31:54.560
Absolutely right.
And then 2009, I did it again,

0:31:54.560,0:31:59.040
and I was very happy to see how much
I had learned within those 30 years.

0:31:59.040,0:32:02.400
Oh, tell me about that. Yeah.
What changed in those 30 years?

0:32:02.400,0:32:08.000
How do you think you have changed as an
ancient art expert over that span of time?

0:32:08.000,0:32:14.400
Oh, when it first came, and I, of course,
studied ancient Egyptian

0:32:14.400,0:32:18.560
culture and art and history.
I mean, I was a young curator,

0:32:18.560,0:32:24.240
I had not worked with the objects.
I had not had the experience of

0:32:24.240,0:32:31.520
quite a few other Egyptian collections,
but also I've added significantly to our permanent

0:32:31.520,0:32:40.000
collection of Egyptian art here in those 30 years.
We have some wonderful things that I've

0:32:40.000,0:32:45.440
had a chance to study and examine.
But the other thing that is important

0:32:45.440,0:32:51.200
is there are always new discoveries
and there's new ways of putting

0:32:51.200,0:32:56.720
Egyptian art into a context.
And so within those 30 years,

0:32:56.720,0:33:02.800
there's so much new information
about ancient Egypt.

0:33:04.480,0:33:13.280
I was able to install it quite differently,
but then at the same time have this unique

0:33:13.280,0:33:15.360
experience of
having some of

0:33:15.360,0:33:21.360
these great treasures from the Boy King.
I like to say when the Boy King was here,

0:33:21.360,0:33:26.080
I was the girl curator. That was 1979.
(laugh)

0:33:26.080,0:33:30.400
But you learn and you have
experience working with the objects,

0:33:30.400,0:33:35.200
and then you try to stay on
top of all the new discoveries

0:33:35.200,0:33:44.000
and the new ideas around the king.
The second time I did the King Tut show,

0:33:44.000,0:33:47.440
I knew so much more.
I mean, he died at such

0:33:47.440,0:33:52.560
a young age and people used to think,
how could he have accomplished anything?

0:33:53.120,0:33:57.120
He was young when he came
on and became the pharaoh.

0:33:57.120,0:34:07.120
And then he died, let's see, 17, 18 years old.
But remember, we talked about Akhenaten.

0:34:07.120,0:34:14.480
Now we know that Akhenaten was his father.
Didn't know that before. DNA testing.

0:34:14.480,0:34:18.960
I mean, there are all kinds of
things that we've come upon.

0:34:18.960,0:34:22.880
Nefertiti was not his
mother, it was another queen.

0:34:22.880,0:34:31.760
But the public was not happy with only one god
that Akhenaten, his father, had done.

0:34:31.760,0:34:36.960
Akhenaten taxed the temples
and the priests didn't like it.

0:34:36.960,0:34:44.320
And when Tutankhamun came on —
his name was originally Tut-ankh-aten

0:34:44.320,0:34:48.000
named after the sun disc.
He went back to being

0:34:48.000,0:34:55.520
-amun. He went back to saying ...
He refurbished a lot of the temples.

0:34:55.520,0:35:02.080
The priests could once again
teach their basic religious ideas

0:35:02.080,0:35:05.520
and principles of polytheism.

0:35:05.520,0:35:13.280
So now we knew so much more
about him than in 1979.

0:35:13.840,0:35:19.840
So it really opened the doors to being
able to tell a more comprehensive story.

0:35:19.840,0:35:23.360
So I'm sorry, I interrupted you before.
You were starting to talk about a white whale

0:35:23.360,0:35:26.320
or an exhibition that you would
love to oversee in the future.

0:35:26.320,0:35:32.960
I have not done a major show on the
ancient Near East or Western Asia,

0:35:32.960,0:35:38.080
maybe now that we're calling it.
I just want to say, you asked me also

0:35:38.080,0:35:43.280
about an object in the exhibition
that just calls out to me.

0:35:43.280,0:35:46.480
Yes.
And it is in the last gallery,

0:35:46.480,0:35:55.360
and those are discoveries from intact royal tombs
that were only discovered in 1939, 1940.

0:35:55.360,0:35:59.040
And they would've been world famous.
They would've hit the headlines.

0:35:59.040,0:36:05.920
They would've been on the front page of all the
newspapers except for the fact of World War II.

0:36:05.920,0:36:12.080
So nobody knew about these discoveries.
And these are extraordinary objects.

0:36:12.080,0:36:17.920
And one of the objects in the
exhibition is a large necklace

0:36:17.920,0:36:25.040
of lapis lazuli beads that has
been restrung by an Egyptian.

0:36:25.040,0:36:30.160
So there are gold balls as well
and a gold clasp in the back.

0:36:30.160,0:36:37.600
But what makes it extraordinary
is that there is an Assyrian lapis

0:36:37.600,0:36:45.120
lazuli gorgeous blue bead that
has a cuneiform inscription on it.

0:36:46.080,0:36:51.440
And what I like to talk about, I mean,
this is from the same period of time,

0:36:51.440,0:37:02.240
the Assyrians from today's Northern Iraq had
commerce with the Egyptians at about 1000 BC.

0:37:02.240,0:37:08.080
They overlapped in time.
And what I like to do is to talk about who

0:37:08.080,0:37:13.120
knew whom and the interrelationships.
Yes.

0:37:13.120,0:37:20.240
And that's the kind of show I would like to do.
As soon as you do, I will buy a ticket, day one.

0:37:20.240,0:37:23.840
You just let me know whenever that's coming.
All right.

0:37:23.840,0:37:27.040
That sounds fascinating. Yeah.
We were talking at the start of this

0:37:27.040,0:37:30.720
conversation about how museums can captivate you,
can surprise you,

0:37:30.720,0:37:34.720
can change you on a molecular level.
Let's also talk about the Etruscans exhibit

0:37:34.720,0:37:40.400
that recently closed at the Legion of Honor.
What was surprising there? How did that change

0:37:40.400,0:37:44.720
you, overseeing that exhibition?
The Etruscan exhibition took

0:37:44.720,0:37:51.040
many years for me to organize
and a lot of negotiating with

0:37:51.040,0:37:58.160
colleagues and museum directors around the world,
really, to understand the ancient Etruscans.

0:37:58.160,0:38:02.080
They were people who I
always was fascinated about,

0:38:02.080,0:38:06.560
the Met had their collection of
Etruscan art when I was growing up.

0:38:06.560,0:38:11.840
And I wondered why it was that
people didn't understand that,

0:38:11.840,0:38:16.080
in the ancient world, you don't
go from the Greeks to the Romans

0:38:16.080,0:38:23.200
and then from the Romans to us.
There was another step and it was the Etruscans.

0:38:23.200,0:38:28.720
So you go from the Greeks to the
Etruscans, the Etruscans to the Romans.

0:38:28.720,0:38:34.160
Romans stood on the shoulders of the Etruscans.
Yes.

0:38:34.160,0:38:39.360
While working on that exhibition,
I read a lot, I learned a lot.

0:38:39.360,0:38:46.400
I was able to convince museum directors
that objects that had never before been lent,

0:38:46.400,0:38:52.800
why they were necessary to tell the story,
the narrative about the ancient Etruscans.

0:38:52.800,0:39:00.320
And the different sections of the Etruscan
exhibition fell into place so beautifully.

0:39:00.320,0:39:07.040
So the narrative was extremely clear
as you walk from gallery to gallery.

0:39:07.040,0:39:12.240
Never in all of my years of working
on exhibitions, museum exhibitions,

0:39:12.240,0:39:18.080
have I had this experience of people
saying, "Oh, you're the curator?

0:39:18.080,0:39:23.353
Oh, let me thank you. This is the most
beautiful exhibition I have ever seen."

0:39:23.353,0:39:24.400
Oh wow.
Or "This is the

0:39:24.400,0:39:29.280
most important exhibition I've ever seen."
And the one that I liked the best is the

0:39:29.280,0:39:35.360
woman who came up to me and she said,
"This exhibition makes my heart sing."

0:39:35.360,0:39:43.360
Even my own show came out to be even
more important and more significant.

0:39:43.360,0:39:48.400
And talking about changing
people on the molecular basis,

0:39:48.400,0:39:55.120
people really felt that they learned
so much about the ancient Etruscans

0:39:55.120,0:40:01.680
and many have never heard of them before.
They never even heard the name. Somebody

0:40:01.680,0:40:05.920
said, "What's your next show?"
And I said, "The Etruscans." "Oh,

0:40:05.920,0:40:09.600
the crustaceans.
That's interesting."

0:40:09.600,0:40:11.600
(laugh)
Or I said,

0:40:11.600,0:40:17.520
"Siri, show me something about the Etruscans."
And they came up with a picture of a trash can.

0:40:17.520,0:40:19.920
The ancient Egyptians had a
much better marketing team.

0:40:19.920,0:40:23.120
They're much better known.
Yeah. Yeah. And the Greeks and the

0:40:23.120,0:40:26.000
Romans certainly did, yes.
Yes.

0:40:26.000,0:40:29.120
Good PR.
You got it. Yeah.

0:40:29.120,0:40:32.800
Coming up on the end of the interview
here, I have one more question for you.

0:40:32.800,0:40:36.560
When you are in any museum
gift shop, what do you buy?

0:40:36.560,0:40:45.440
Whoa! Oh, I'm a sucker for
books, catalogs in books.

0:40:45.440,0:40:53.200
But if there's a really good
reproduction of a piece of jewelry,

0:40:53.200,0:40:59.600
I guess that could be my Achilles heel.
You are the first person to say jewelry. I'm

0:40:59.600,0:41:01.680
glad to have a new answer. Yes.
Yeah.

0:41:01.680,0:41:07.360
Oftentimes museum stores have
the best collection of books

0:41:07.360,0:41:10.400
and not just about art history,
but about culture and

0:41:10.400,0:41:16.960
civilization and sometimes philosophy.
So I'm on the lookout for those books.

0:41:16.960,0:41:21.760
And I was very amused in the
gift shop for this exhibition,

0:41:21.760,0:41:28.000
they sell the hat that is worn by the
famous Egyptologist who you worked with.

0:41:28.000,0:41:31.520
And the reason why it's there,
and I'm just glad you mentioned

0:41:31.520,0:41:36.560
that because I was kind of the
intermediary to make that happen,

0:41:36.560,0:41:43.680
is because the proceeds from
the sale of those hats goes —

0:41:43.680,0:41:49.920
thanks to Zahi Hawass himself — it
goes to a children's cancer hospital.

0:41:49.920,0:41:54.240
Fantastic. What a great cause.
What a great exhibition.

0:41:54.240,0:41:57.840
Renée, you really are a queen. Thank
you so much for coming on the podcast.

0:41:57.840,0:42:01.360
It's wonderful talking to you.
Thank you so much, Eric. This was fun.

0:42:01.360,0:42:04.400
Thanks again to Renée Dreyfus
for coming on the podcast!

0:42:04.400,0:42:09.520
Treasures of the Pharaohs is running at the de
Young Museum through the end of January, 2027.

0:42:09.520,0:42:12.880
And as part of our gift shop giveaway,
I’m giving away a something really fun

0:42:12.880,0:42:16.800
that I bought in the exhibition gift shop.
It’s a glasses case that looks

0:42:16.800,0:42:20.240
like Thuya’s coffin lid,
with a matching lens cloth inside.

0:42:20.240,0:42:25.600
To enter, all you have to do is sign up for
our free email newsletter at likemuseum.com.

0:42:25.600,0:42:29.040
Call ‘Em Like Museum is hosted
and edited by me, Eric Johnson.

0:42:29.040,0:42:32.400
It’s produced out of my podcast
agency in San Francisco, LightningPod.

0:42:33.040,0:42:37.760
Our social media specialist is Julia
Wilde, artwork by Rhe Civitello.

0:42:37.760,0:42:41.280
Special thanks this week to
Francisco Rosas and Lindsay Wright.

0:42:41.280,0:42:47.040
And thank you for listening!
I’ll see you at the museum.