New Year Gift: Shield 1427 BC

Norman de Garis Davies created this watercolor on paper titled "New Year Gift: Shield." Davies, born in 1865, spent much of his career meticulously documenting Egyptian tombs and artifacts during a time when Western interest in Egyptology was flourishing. This work depicts an object discovered during that period. While seemingly an objective record, consider the gaze through which these objects were, and continue to be, viewed. The shield, likely holding deep cultural and symbolic meaning for its original owners, is here presented as an artifact, divorced from its original context. What does it mean to classify an object as a 'gift' when its significance may extend far beyond a simple exchange? Davies' work invites us to reflect on the complex dynamics of cultural heritage and the politics inherent in how we interpret and preserve the past.