In March and April of 1900, the Egyptologists Georg Steindorff, Ludwig Borchardt and Heinrich Schäfer set off together with the classical archaeologist Hermann Thiersch and diplomat Curt von Grünau on a journey into the region between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile. One of their objectives was to visit the sites of the Pharaoh’s border forts of the Middle Kingdom.

The photographic documentation of this trip to Nubia had long been considered lost. But in 2015, during the inspection and cataloguing of the photographic archives of the Ägyptisches Museum, an unlabelled folder was uncovered containing some 300 photos, which after in-depth research were able to be identified as stemming from the Nubia trip, and are now being presented to the public for the first time in this exhibition.