Up to 40 ℃, Shanghai is sizzling.

Even more red-hot is the exhibition

“On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt”,

hosted by Shanghai Museum,

and organized by team of scholars from

the World Art History Institute (WAI)

at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU)

Curators from SISU: Brimming with “SISU” Elements

200,000 early-bird tickets sold out fast,

leaving fans scrambling to secure their spots by this summer.

With soaring popularity, this civilization exhibition

is steeped in “SISU” elements

As the largest global exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts

and the highest-level exhibition ever held in Asia,

this sensational event has captivated both domestic and international visitors.

After a walk-through of the cultural feast,

visitors were gifted with another amazing discovery.

The chief curator is Yan Haiyin,

a Distinguished Professor of WAI

“As many people have little knowledge of ancient Egypt,

the wave of interest sparked by such an exhibition fulfills us with a deep sense of accomplishment.”

 Yan, immersed in delight, further explained the public hype,

“The Chinese people are also inheritors of an ancient civilization,

so our interest in and approach to ancient Egypt naturally differ from those of the West.”

Aiming to unveil this civilization to the public

and to announce the latest archeological discoveries, 

Yan has paid numerous visits to Egypt,

accompanied by WAI researcher Xuejiang and Shanghai Museum’s research team,

presenting cutting-edge achievements of World Egyptology and Archaeology from the perspective of Chinese scholars.

The Shanghai Exhibition encompasses 492 sets of more than 780 selected artifacts from various eras of ancient Egyptian civilization.

This is the debut of over 95 percent of these artifacts in Asia.

More remarkably, the latest 400 or more are presented to the world for the first time.

SISUers at the Site: Witnessing an Unprecedented Artifact Expedition

“The desert surface reaching 47 ℃

and inside the mastaba 70 ℃,

Saqqara, the timeless slumbering chamber of Egypt,

causes sunstroke easily,

even when the working time is limited to merely 4 hours a day.”

Xue and the team leader at the archeological site 

are addressing the media on the uncovering process of artifacts by the China-Egypt Joint Archaeological Team

“Once lowered down into an over-ten-meter shaft tome, I caught the exquisitely delicate and intact ‘green-faced coffin’ amid over a dozen stacked wooden coffins at the first sight.”

“The Secrets of Saqqara”, one of the three chapters of this exhibition,

showcases the China-Egypt joint findings from the digital investigation and research project involving newly unearthed relics.

According to professional conventions, the exposition of artifacts should be restricted

before the submission of an official sorting report.

Fortunately, the Egyptian government provided unprecedented permission to ship these collections to Shanghai, thanks to the long-term close archeological cooperation between China and Egypt——

numerous agreements and research projects have been made with the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt, under the continuous dedication of the research team led by WAI director Zhu Qingsheng, Professor Yan and Dr. Xue.

Among the projects is the China-Egypt Joint Investigation and Research Project on Ancient Egyptian Antiquities,

 a package of cooperation projects mainly covering digital scanning, photographing, sorting and researching more than 1,000 mummified wooden coffins excavated in Saqqara.

A database on cultural relics resources will be established in the future

and final research results will be jointly released to the world in Chinese, Arabic and English.

"It is a new initiative for a Chinese university to enter an Egyptian archaeological site for the first time.”

Yan hopes that more Chinese youth will join this field,

injecting eastern perspectives into this ancient civilization,

and exploring mysteries in "The Land of the Pharaohs".

Promoting China-Egypt Mutual Learning: Academic Cooperation Towards the Future

This exhibition is jointly organized by

Shanghai Museum and The Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt,

guided by State Cultural Relics Bureau and 

the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Party Committee Secretary Yin Dongmei and President Li Yansong attended the opening ceremony upon invitation.

This thirteen-month exhibition is expected to attract a great number of visitors from home and abroad,

and will continue to draw the attention of mainstream media.

These years, concerning global exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations,

SISU has been advancing in-depth academic research and cultivating talents for China’s civilization studies.

In foundational historical research based on language,

to attach significance to primary research and to make full advantage of interdisciplinary integration of “language plus”,

fields including image science, data science and neuroscience were expanded in 2020.

This gesture aims to enhance the depth of materials, understanding,

analytical intensity, and publication level in area studies,

thus gradually building China’s independent academic discourse system.

WAI being an experimental base, the university has also established a special research program on Gandhara studies within the field of “Silk Road Civilization Exchange”,

inviting globally renowned experts to join full-time, fostering research into ancient China-foreign intellectual and cultural exchanges linking to Buddhist art.

A framework of ancient Greek art studies has also been set in the field of “Origin of Western Civilization”.

By collaborating with experts in the fields of linguistics, literature, philosophy, art studies, history, and archaeology, the university is striving for in-depth studies driven by original research data.

By integrating computer technology, the methodology and research approaches based on Professor Zhu Qingsheng’s Han Painting Studies in the past twenty years,

and the linguistic advantages of SISU,

the university is now undertaking research on developing a new generation of database (image database),

dedicated to the construction of an open and jointly-built World Civilizations Research Database.

Around this central theme, SISU is now blazing out a new pathway for civilization studies,

from understanding to mutual learning, from interaction to integration,

and from cooperation to sharing.