Finding collections relating to d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse people

One of the aims of our project is to make collections relating to d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people more visible – and to share some of the objects our Fellows and Trainees are discovering.

Some will have quite obvious connections to disabled people’s lives – a walking stick, some braille or images of disabled people. But we will also be exploring less obvious connections too. Sometimes the significance of an object is its owner; its part in a bigger story, or the way someone with lived experience of disability has responded to it. In this way we hope to broaden the ways that d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent stories are told.

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EGYPTIAN HEART SCARAB (Amulet)

New Kingdom Egypt (c. 1550 - 1069 BCE)

1952.5.80

This stone amulet is known as a "Heart Scarab", a special amulet - stylised in the form of a scarab beetle - and deposited with a deceased person in their tomb, sometimes resting on their chest above the heart. This object was displayed in the co-curated gallery trail "Nothing Without Us: Experiences of Disability" at...

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Rights information: Copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Description

This stone amulet is known as a "Heart Scarab", a special amulet - stylised in the form of a scarab beetle - and deposited with a deceased person in their tomb, sometimes resting on their chest above the heart. This object was displayed in the co-curated gallery trail "Nothing Without Us: Experiences of Disability" at the Pitt Rivers Museum, curated by Kyle Lewis Jordan, running from 16th November 2023 - 6th October 2024.

Ancient Egyptians believed that in the afterlife their hearts would be weighed against the feather of truth. The heart was where a person's mind resided, and where they kept all their memories. This scarab is inscribed with seven lines of prayers, which the deceased could use to calm their heart before being judged.

Community curation: Head or heart (or both)? Where do my many traumas live on? And do they define me? The answer to the latter is yes! Will my heart show ‘worthiness’ in the afterlife? Does the pain of grieving lost love and the burden of day-to-day living weigh heavy on my shoulders; or manifest through the almost nightly vivid and violent nightmares from which I suffer; or is it all in my neurodivergent mind? - Christopher H, Late-diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and Complex PTSD

Meet our Fellows and Trainees

The Curating for Change project is running eight Fellowships over 18 months and eight Traineeships over 40 days based across 20 partner museums. Learn more about our Fellows and Trainees here.

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