A carving of a Kushite princess, one of many Egyptian artefacts held at The Fitzwilliam. © The Fitzwilliam Museum.

Plans are underway to launch an innovative study to help engage prisoners at Whitemoor Prison in East Anglia with collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

Dr Sally-Ann Ashton, Senior Assistant Keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam, was so inspired by the prisoners’ reaction to lectures she gave there she is now seeking funds for a scheme to provide them with digital information.

Sally gave her first lecture at the prison last summer on Greek rulers in Egypt in which she showed how these Greeks wanted to be seen as Egyptian. Her second lecture in April described how the Romans saw Egypt as part of Africa and how Egyptians were often shown as black.

Her aim was to dispel the common misconception that Greeks and Romans appropriated African culture when in fact they actually wanted to be part of Egypt.

In total she lectured to roughly 50 prisoners, some of whom were long term predominantly African-Caribbean prisoners who were particularly interested in Egypt as part of Africa and how it related to their own heritage.

A Henry Moore sculpture in the museum grounds. © The Fitzwilliam Museum.

According to Sally, by providing virtual artefacts and information in digital form the prisoners will be able to push their studies further.

"The idea is to take this forward and give inmates something that they could work with or be interested to use at different levels," she explained. "Some are actually studying for a degree in archaeology. It also made it seem more important that I was actually talking about someone’s cultural heritage rather than just a degree course or studies."

People have been going into the prison for a few years to give the long term prisoners lectures and once every couple of years someone from the Antiquities department at the Fitzwilliam gives a lecture on various aspects of their work.

After her visit Sally spoke to Kenneth John, the African-Caribbean Outreach Officer at the Petrie Museum in London where she also used to work. Having worked at Whitemoor Prison in the past, he was keen to work with them again and they are now applying for a grant to work together on the pilot project and receive the IT support they need.

Holding the University of Cambridge's art and antiquitiy collections, the Fitzwilliam is a mine of information. © The Fitzwilliam Museum.

Sally hopes that if the scheme is set up, other museums will be interested in taking part.

The aim is to start working on devising a way to look at the history of Egypt as part of Africa and as a country with a black heritage from a different point of view. "Many of the prisoners are self-taught," she said, "and exploring different aspects which they haven’t been able to before. I really want to make our collections relevant to them."

However, Egypt is not just of interest to the inmates of Whitemoor from a cultural point of view. Some of the prisoners studying history and archaeology have asked for reading lists and others, who are doing art courses, just want pictures so they can incorporate them into their art. There has also been a keen interest in mathematics and science in Egypt from one long-term prisoner in particular who is studying for maths examinations.

"They really do know what they want and they say it," added Sally. "They are very vocal about their needs and that’s fantastic from our point of view because it means we can provide them with what they really need."

A painted Shabti from the 19th Dynasty. © The Fitzwilliam Museum.

The material has to be sent to the prisoners offline as they do not have access to the web and permission is needed from any museums which have links on the sites. With funding, Sally hopes to create a virtual walkthrough of the gallery which the prisoners said they would be very interested in.

Helen Strudwick, Outreach Officer for Ancient Egypt at the Fitzwilliam will be writing for the website and once the digital material is up and running, the team hopes to be able to look towards creating workshops.

“I felt really inspired by their enthusiasm," said Sally. "They’re just so interested in the subject and it seemed crazy not to do something with such an enthusiastic group. It really is a shame they can’t come to the museum. This is just a small way to try and get them involved."

Catherine Rose is the 24 Hour Museum Renaissance student journalist for the East of England region. Renaissance is the groundbreaking initiative to transform England's regional museums, led by MLA, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.