The museum said there had been a 'commotion about this exhibition, because it shows Egyptian culture through the eyes of artists with African roots.'
LEIDEN - In a Dutch museum the sound of hip-hop blares out next to sarcophagi and statues, in what curators say is an attempt to show the influence of ancient Egypt on black musicians.
But the "Kemet" exhibition at Leiden's Rijksmuseum van Oudheden has enraged Egypt, which has reportedly banned the museum's archaeologists from a dig at a key site. And so what was meant to be an empowering celebration of "Egypt in hip-hop, jazz, soul and funk" has instead become a culture war.With a small handful of visitors inspecting the exhibits on a quiet weekday morning, the canalside museum in a Dutch university town doesn't exactly look like a battlefield.
Museum director Wim Weijland was quoted by the Dutch newspaper NRC as saying that Egypt's reaction was "unseemly". The exhibition had two aims, it added -- to "show and understand the depiction of ancient Egypt and the messages in music by black artists" and to "show what scientific, Egyptological research can tell us about ancient Egypt and Nubia."
Staff at the museum were shocked as they have been active for nearly five decades at the vast burial site, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and are currently leading an excavation there.
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