The University of Michigan’s Abydos Middle Cemetery (AMC) Project and the Kelsey Museum’s staff—working in close collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the staff of the Sohag National Museum—designed, conserved, and curated the new exhibition The Governor of Upper Egypt Weni the Elder and the Origins of the Osiris Festival in the Pilgrimage section of the Sohag National Museum in Egypt. This exhibition, funded by a grant from the American Research Center in Egypt Antiquities Endowment Fund, reunites objects from 1860 excavations in the Abydos Middle Cemetery with objects found by the Michigan team since 1999 and presents them in a display that reconstructs a sense of their original context. 

On October 28, 2024, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled formally opened the exhibition. Also in attendance at the opening in Sohag were the Head of the Museums Sector Dr. Moamen Osman, Head of the Central Department of Regional Museums Dr. Ahmed Hemayda, Head of the Central Department of Upper Egypt Dr. Mohamed Abdel Badia, and General Director of Sohag Antiquities Dr. Mohamed Naguib Reda. The event was featured in the prime-time roundup on Egypt’s national news channel the next day. This exhibition’s opening represents the culmination of the hard work of an extensive multinational and multidisciplinary team.

Sohag Show Opening, October 28, 2024

Group photo of team members of the Abydos Middle Cemetery Project stand in the Sohag National Museum.
Exterior of the Sohag National Museum: a tan and brown building with “Sohag National Museum” written in English and Arabic, with a large stone head on a platform out in front. Banners advertising the Weni exhibit hang from the façade.
Janet Richards and Mohamed Ismail Khaled talk to one another in the Weni the Elder exhibit space, which displays a tall stone monument and a low vitrine full of objects. A crowd of people stands around them.
Five people (Janet Richards, Moamen Osman, Ahmed Hemayda, Alaa El Qadi, and Nahla Abdullah El Keshky stand in a group talking in the Weni the Elder exhibit gallery space.
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Photo Show at the Kelsey Museum

AMC Project Director Janet Richards and Associate Director Suzanne Davis, with Kelsey staff and U-M graduate students Heidi Hilliker and Sam Ross, have also installed a sister show in the Kelsey Museum, which will be open through April 28, 2025. A Michigan-Egyptian Collaboration: Exhibiting Weni the Elder in the Sohag National Museum gives visitors an introduction to Michigan’s research at Weni the Elder’s tomb complex in Abydos and a view into Sohag’s Weni exhibition through photographic representations of its key components. An in-gallery monitor offers further behind-the-scenes glimpses of this Michigan-Egyptian collaboration.