Museo Egizio
Encyclopedia
The Museo Egizio is a museum in Turin
, Italy
, specialising in Egyptian
archaeology
and anthropology
. It houses the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities
outside the Egyptian Museum
in Cairo
. In 2006 it received 554,911 visitors.
in Rome. This exotic piece spurred King Carlo Emmanuele III
to commission botanist Vitaliano Donati
to travel to Egypt in 1753 and acquire items from its past. Donati returned with 300 pieces recovered from Karnak
and Coptos, which became the nucleus of the Turin collection.
In 1824, King Carlo Felice acquired the material from the Drovetti collection (5,268 pieces, including 100 statues, 170 papyri
, stelae, mummies, and other items), that the French General Consul, Bernardino Drovetti
, had built during his stay in Egypt. In the same year, Jean-François Champollion
used the huge Turin collection of papyri to test his breakthroughs in deciphering the hieroglyphic writing. The time Champollion spent in Turin studying the texts is also the origin of a legend about the mysterious disappearance of the "Papiro Regio", that was only later found and of which some portions are still unavailable. In 1950 a parapsychologist was contacted to pinpoint them, to no avail.
In 1833, the collection of Piedmontese Giuseppe Sossio (over 1,200 pieces) was added to the Egyptian Museum. The collection was complemented and completed by the finds of Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli
, during his excavation campaigns between 1900 and 1920, further filled out the collection. Its last major acquisition was the small temple of Ellesiya, which the Egyptian government presented to Italy for her assistance during the Nubia
n monument salvage campaign in the 1960s.
Through all these years, the Egyptian collection has always been in Turin, in the building projected for the purpose of housing it, in Via Accademia delle Scienze 6. Only during the Second World War was some of the material moved to the town of Agliè
. The museum became an experiment of the Italian government in privatization
of the nation's museums when the Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie was officially established at the end of 2004. The building itself was remodelled in celebration of the 2006 Winter Olympics
, with its main rooms redesigned by Dante Ferretti
, and "featured an imaginative use of lighting and mirrors in a spectacular display of some of the most important and impressive Pharaonic statues in the museum collection."
Items of interest include:
The Egyptian Museum owns three different versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead
, including the most ancient copy known. An integral illustrated version and the personal copy of the First Royal Architect Kha, found by Schiaparelli in 1906 are normally shown to the public. On more than one occasion the director of the Museum was asked to remove the two copies of the book on display and stock them in a deep and dark basement, always for strictly esoteric reasons (as the papyrus emanates "negative energy"). At the time of writing, none of these requests appears to have been put into practice.
The third floor has nothing to do with Egypt but is an art gallery, the “Galleria Sabauda” (Savoyard) housing the private collection of Princes of Savoy who became the first kings of modern Italy. Famous names among the artists on display include Fra Angelico.
the entrance hall of the Museo Egizio is the place where the robbers tow the security van in order to transfer the bullion to the three getaway Mini
s.
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, specialising in Egyptian
Art of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...
archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
. It houses the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities
Art of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...
outside the Egyptian Museum
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms....
in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. In 2006 it received 554,911 visitors.
History
The first object having an association with Egypt to arrive in Turin was the Mensa Isiaca in 1630, an altar table in imitation of Egyptian style, which Dulu Jones suggests had been created for a temple to IsisIsis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
in Rome. This exotic piece spurred King Carlo Emmanuele III
Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia
Charles Emmanuel III was the Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia from 1730 until his death.-Biography:...
to commission botanist Vitaliano Donati
Vitaliano Donati
Vitaliano Donati , born in Padua in Italy, was an Italian doctor, archeologist, and botanist. He took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1739....
to travel to Egypt in 1753 and acquire items from its past. Donati returned with 300 pieces recovered from Karnak
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex—usually called Karnak—comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amun and a massive structure begun by Pharaoh Ramses II . Sacred Lake is part of the site as well. It is located near Luxor, some...
and Coptos, which became the nucleus of the Turin collection.
In 1824, King Carlo Felice acquired the material from the Drovetti collection (5,268 pieces, including 100 statues, 170 papyri
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
, stelae, mummies, and other items), that the French General Consul, Bernardino Drovetti
Bernardino Drovetti
Bernardino Michele Maria Drovetti was an Italian diplomat, lawyer, explorer and antiquarian, appointed by Napoleon as French consul to Egypt at a time when the country and its antiquities were being opened rapidly to European knowledge and acquisition. His methods were deplorable...
, had built during his stay in Egypt. In the same year, Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
used the huge Turin collection of papyri to test his breakthroughs in deciphering the hieroglyphic writing. The time Champollion spent in Turin studying the texts is also the origin of a legend about the mysterious disappearance of the "Papiro Regio", that was only later found and of which some portions are still unavailable. In 1950 a parapsychologist was contacted to pinpoint them, to no avail.
In 1833, the collection of Piedmontese Giuseppe Sossio (over 1,200 pieces) was added to the Egyptian Museum. The collection was complemented and completed by the finds of Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli
Ernesto Schiaparelli
Ernesto Schiaparelli was an Italian Egyptologist, born in Occhieppo Inferiore , who found Queen Nefertari's tomb in Deir el-Medina in the Valley of the Queens and excavated the TT8 tomb of the royal architect Kha , found intact and displayed in toto in Turin...
, during his excavation campaigns between 1900 and 1920, further filled out the collection. Its last major acquisition was the small temple of Ellesiya, which the Egyptian government presented to Italy for her assistance during the Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...
n monument salvage campaign in the 1960s.
Through all these years, the Egyptian collection has always been in Turin, in the building projected for the purpose of housing it, in Via Accademia delle Scienze 6. Only during the Second World War was some of the material moved to the town of Agliè
Agliè
Agliè is a comune in the province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 35 km north of Turin.Agliè borders the following municipalities: San Martino Canavese, Torre Canavese, Bairo, Vialfrè, Cuceglio, San Giorgio Canavese, and Ozegna.-Main sights:Agliè's main attraction is...
. The museum became an experiment of the Italian government in privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
of the nation's museums when the Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie was officially established at the end of 2004. The building itself was remodelled in celebration of the 2006 Winter Olympics
2006 Winter Olympics
The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Turin, Italy from February 10, 2006, through February 26, 2006. This marked the second time Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the VII Olympic Winter...
, with its main rooms redesigned by Dante Ferretti
Dante Ferretti
Dante Ferretti is an Italian production designer, art director and costume designer for films.In his career, Ferretti has worked with many great directors, both American and Italian, such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Terry Gilliam, Franco Zeffirelli, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford...
, and "featured an imaginative use of lighting and mirrors in a spectacular display of some of the most important and impressive Pharaonic statues in the museum collection."
Collection
- Assemblea dei Re (Kings Assembly) a term originally indicating a collection of statues representing all the kings of the New Kingdom.
- Temple of Tuthmosi III
- Sarcophagi, mummies and books of the dead originally belonging to the Drovetti collection.
- A painting on canvas dated at about 3500 BC (found in 1931)
- Funerary paraphernalia from the Tomba di Ignoti (Tomb of Unknown) from the Old Kingdom
- Tomb of KhaKhaKha or Ha is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiceless velar fricative , like the Scottish pronunciation of ⟨ch⟩ in "loch".Kha is romanized as ⟨kh⟩.-History:...
and of MeritMeritThe term merit constitutes a desirable trait or ability belonging to a person or an object.It may refer to:* Merit * Merit * Meritocracymerit may also mean:...
, found intact by Schiaparelli and transferred in toto in the museum - Papyrus collection room, originally collected by Drovetti and later used by Champollion during his studies for the decoding of the hieroglyphics.
- Mensa Isiaca (The Table of IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
) - Tomba Dipinta (The Painted Tomb) usually closed to the public.
- The Turin King ListTurin King ListThe Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is a hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Ramesses II, now in the Museo Egizio at Turin...
(or Turin Royal Canon)
The Egyptian Museum owns three different versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...
, including the most ancient copy known. An integral illustrated version and the personal copy of the First Royal Architect Kha, found by Schiaparelli in 1906 are normally shown to the public. On more than one occasion the director of the Museum was asked to remove the two copies of the book on display and stock them in a deep and dark basement, always for strictly esoteric reasons (as the papyrus emanates "negative energy"). At the time of writing, none of these requests appears to have been put into practice.
The third floor has nothing to do with Egypt but is an art gallery, the “Galleria Sabauda” (Savoyard) housing the private collection of Princes of Savoy who became the first kings of modern Italy. Famous names among the artists on display include Fra Angelico.
Trivia
In the film The Italian JobThe Italian Job
The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
the entrance hall of the Museo Egizio is the place where the robbers tow the security van in order to transfer the bullion to the three getaway Mini
Mini
The Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
s.
See also
- Egyptian MuseumEgyptian MuseumThe Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms....
- Grand Egyptian MuseumGrand Egyptian MuseumThe Grand Egyptian Museum , also known as the Giza Museum, is a planned museum of artifacts of ancient Egypt. Described as the largest archaeological museum in the world, the USD 550 million museum is scheduled to open in 2013...
- Egyptian Museum of BerlinEgyptian Museum of BerlinThe Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the world's most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts.The collection is part of the Neues Museum.-History:...
- List of museums with major collections of Egyptian antiquities