Staff Choices

We asked members of the team to pick their favourite item from the stores, Curator of Exhibitions Jan Bee Brown chose an eye from an Egyptian mummy …

What is your role within Scarborough Museums Trust?

I work as Curator of Exhibitions. As an artist, theatre designer and curator I have a passion for finding the story behind any object or piece of art. 

What is your favourite item in the collection?

The eye from an Egyptian mummy case in the Clarke charm collection

SCARM:1946.185

What do you like about this item?

This is one of the most exotic and dramatic items in the Charm collection, it was thought to ward off the ‘evil eye’.  I imagine the tomb-raiders hacking the eye from the mummy case and the curse that might have followed them.  They would have needed their own charms for protection!  The eye is a potent graphic symbol; this one really does follow you around the room!

What does Scarborough Collections mean to you?

There are so many fabulous stories to be told!  Mr Clarke was a curator at the Rotunda 1913-1915 what I find interesting is that he collected these charms at a time of huge loss of life and social change during and following the First World War.  The collection makes me wonder why we still use charms for good luck.  Despite the advances in science and medicine we are still superstitious; can we really control our destiny?