The tomb-chapel of Nebamun, British Museum, London

The fertile marshes of the Nile are teeming with wildlife; birds, fish and butterflies flock around the lotus flowers and papyrus reeds. The figure of Nebamun dominates the scene. He is hunting for birds in a shallow boat with his wife and daughter.

This is one of the most famous images of ancient Egyptian art, and is one of 11 large fragments of painting from the tomb-chapel of Nebamun recently put back on display at the British Museum in its new gallery after a decade of conservation and research.

The paintings show Nebamun, a wealthy accountant in the temple of Amun at Thebes, who died c1350 BC, at work and at leisure and show us how he wanted to be seen for all eternity. They are visually stunning and rich in detail, offering an insight into the lives of the elite and their servants.

Nebamun and his friends have beautiful gardens and massive feasts, while his servants are shown looking after his land and livestock and waiting on his every need.

The paintings are displayed to their best advantage on neutral backgrounds with non-reflective glass and subtle lighting. This design helps to evoke the intimacy of their original chapel home.

Rich and poor

Complementing the paintings, the gallery contains contemporary artefacts associated with the lives of Nebamun and his household. These help to add context to the paintings. Many of the artefacts on display reflect those in the paintings, helping to bring them to life.

Others show the extreme contrast between the lives of the rich and the poor. In the Beauty section, for example, there are luxurious artefacts decorated with erotic or floral designs, reminiscent of the hunting scene. In contrast, the artefacts belonging to the poorer Egyptians are plain and mostly utilitarian.

The artefacts are displayed against a backdrop of related images from the paintings. The elaborate collar in the Fashion section is shown next to an image of Nebamun wearing a similar item. This helps to bind the two elements of the gallery together, making the display more coherent.

Orientation in this space is tricky, with two doors on adjacent walls for visitors. The museum deals with this neatly by displaying most of the tomb paintings along one of the long walls in the gallery, the introductory panels around the central pillars and the cases containing the artefacts facing them. This works because the room is not too big and wherever visitors start, they come across the panels fairly quickly.

New information

Each painting has several layers of interpretation starting with a title - Nebamun Viewing his Geese and Cattle or A Feast for Nebamun, for example - and then a basic description. On a panel at the base of each painting there are close-up images of details with added interpretation. There are also reconstruction drawings for each painting.

Although the actual paintings are displayed too high for detailed inspection by wheelchair users or children, the lower-level details from the painting are more accessible. In the cases containing artefacts, there was also a good selection on lower levels, although the children's toys in the Leisure section were displayed too high for most children to see.

The research project has identified new joins between the fragments of painting, which has allowed a better understanding of their original locations in the tomb. The reconstruction drawings show the position of each fragment in relation to other known pieces and outlines of some of the missing areas.

These are particularly helpful when key characters in the scene are missing. In the Offerings for Nebamun fragment, the reconstruction drawing is very useful in showing the probable position of Nebamun and his wife in relation to the huge pile of food offerings, and the position of his son who is offering a bouquet of papyrus and flowers.

There is also a virtual reconstruction of Nebamun's tomb-chapel in the gallery that takes the visitor on a walk-through of the tomb showing where experts think the fragments were placed. Where uncertain, the walls are left blank. This places the painting fragments in their ancient context.

Tomb-chapels were designed as "meeting places between the worlds of the living and the dead", and it seems appropriate that we can virtually enter the tomb-chapel and sample something of this experience. There is also an interactive version of the virtual tomb on the museum's website, which is signposted in the gallery.

The panels describing how the tomb-chapel was built and how it was discovered in 1820 by the Greek collector Giovanni d'Athanasi, who removed the fragments of painting from the walls and sent them to the British Museum, help to place the paintings in context.

Conservation

There is little detailed information in the gallery about the conservation project, which was the largest ever undertaken by the museum, but there are several related publications on sale, including one with extensive background about the study and conservation of the paintings.

Most of what we know about ancient Egypt comes from the funerary remains of a small band of wealthy individuals and there is relatively little evidence surviving from the majority of ordinary Egyptians. The Nebamun tomb-painting gallery acknowledges this imbalance and goes some way to redress it. In doing so, the gallery complements and enhances the museum's other ancient Egyptian galleries.

Overall, the Nebamun gallery is a great success. The paintings themselves are superb examples of ancient Egyptian art and they are well displayed with clear layers of interpretation. There is a strong sense of place, not only of the original home of the paintings, Nebamun's tomb chapel, but also of contemporary Egypt. The artefacts complement the paintings and highlight the disparity between the lives of the rich and poor in ancient Egypt.

Julia Edge is a freelance arts journalist and former collections manager at the Horniman Museum