Exhibition organized by former Junior Fellow Victoria Almansa-Villatoro opens at Yale Peabody Museum

Former Junior Fellow Vicky Almansa-Villatoro (2022 - 2025) was responsible for organizing a newly-opened exhibition exploring the origins of writing at Yale's Peabody Museum. Unfolding History: Writing in Ancient Egypt features 24 loans from the Brooklyn Museum, including newly restored 4,300 year old papyri from Elephantine—the oldest in a North American collection and never before displayed. The exhibition presents new research on these papyri within the broader context of writing in ancient Egypt: its development from simple images to hieroglyphs, literacy in a province far from the capital, and what it meant to be an Egyptian scribe. Almansa-Villatoro, now an Assistant Professor of Egyptology in Yale's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, spent part of her fellowship undertaking the research now featured in the exhibition. Much of the exhibition and the conservation work required for displaying these ancient papyri was made possible by the Milton Fund, an internal Harvard grant awarded to Almansa-Villatoro during her tenure as a Junior Fellow. 

The installation will be on view on the first floor of the Yale Peabody Museum from May 5 to November 1. Read more about the exhibition here.