MUSEO GREGORIANO EGIZIO
Founded by Gregory XVI Cappellari (1831/46)
in 1839
Organized according to the instructions of
the Italian Egyptologist, Father Luigi Maria Ungarelli,
a follower of Jean-François Champollion, the French archaeologist father of
Egyptology, the first to decipher the hieroglyphs in 1822
The museum is housed in the Palace of
Innocent VIII built in about 1487 by Giacomo da Pietrasanta as the Gregorian
Etruscan Museum. The objects come from Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and from Rome as well
as from Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine. The current exhibition was designed by the
French Egyptologist Jean-Claude Grenier
The entrance is in the middle of the
SIMONETTI STAIRCASE so called because designed by Michelangelo
Simonetti (1724/87)
Room I - Stelae and statues with hieroglyphic inscriptions from 2600 BC to 600 AD
The inscription painted by father Ungarelli
on the frame of the room says: “Come and see the room of Egyptian images”
At the center of the room “Throne with part of a statue of Ramses II”
1279/1213 BC in black granite from Heliopolis
“Funerary stele as a fake door” of
Ipy-her-seneb-ef, VI Dynasty, about 2300 BC
“Funerary stele as a fake door of Iry” director
of the Giza Necropolis connected to the pharaoh Cheops, about 2550/2525 BC, in
limestone
“The fake door, which is development of one
of the oldest customs of placing the stele framed in a palace façade, would
have been used by the soul of the deceased to enter and exit from the real of
the dead. In this case, the funerary stele itself is framed in a panel above
the lintel of the fake door. Iry, administrator of the pharaonic necropolis of
Giza, is shown seated in front of the banquet table” (Web site of the Vatican
Museums - mv.vatican.va)
“Commemorative stele of Queen Hatshepsut and Pharaoh
Tuthmosis III” about 1475/58 BC. It was made to mark the
commemoration of the god Ammon in the sacred precincts of the Temple of Karnak
in the city of Thebes
“Scarab” in memory of the excavation of a
reservoir during the reign of Amenophis III, about 1380 BC
“Cartouche of Akhenaton” of the Amarna age,
fourteenth century BC
“Statue of the priest Udja-Hor-res-ne” about 519 BC in dark green basalt with inscriptions
that may refer to the Persian conquest of Egypt by Cambyses of the late sixth
century BC during the reign of the last pharaoh of the Saite dynasty
The phases of the Persian conquest have
been partially rediscovered thanks to these inscriptions
Udja-Hor-res-he was a priest, an admiral
and a doctor and the inscription is autobiographical as well as
self-celebrating, remembering his political role during the invasion. Recently
his tomb was discovered at Abusir
Room II - 1600 BC/200 AD
Commemorative inscription of Gregory XVI
painted by father Ungarelli
“Mask lid of the sarcophagus of the priest
Psammetichus” from Memphis, XXVI dynasty, about 600 BC
In the central showcase sarcophagi (coffins
and lids) in plastered and painted wood with representations of gods and
reproductions of texts of the Book of the Dead, dating to the XXI and XXV
dynasty
In the side opposite the entrance there are
“Two mummies” and other typical funerary
vessels as the “Canopic jars” designed to contain the viscera
of the deceased extracted during the mummification of the bodies
Extraordinary “Lady of the Vatican” painted on linen cloth
mid-third century AD
It is part of a series of six sheets found in 1899 by
Albert Gayet in some old tombs of Severian age (193/235 AD) in the necropolis
of Antinoe, the Egyptian city founded in 130 AD by Adrian (117/138) in memory
of his lover Antinous, currently corresponding to the village of Sheikh 'Abade
(near the Red Sea)
Four of the six canvases are at the Louvre
in Paris and the Benakis Museum in Athens, but the Lady of the Vatican is the
most precious among the six
They are the oldest extant paintings on
canvas in the world
The Lady of the Vatican has been restored
and exhibited in 2000 in an air-conditioned showcase
“For the Greeks as well as for the Romans
the true great art was painting, rather than sculpture. Greek-Roman art, in the
collective imagination of today, is associated mostly to sculpture, as the
number of paintings preserved is far lower than that of sculpture” (Eugenio La
Rocca)
“Portrait of a Young Man on tablet” one of the
about 600 portraits on wood found in the oasis of Fayum 130 km southwest of
Cairo
“The Fayum paintings are a testament of the
significant degree of sophistication of the Alexandrian school, from which
their tradition derives, and show us the degree of accuracy that the artists
used to reach in representing nature. It is only fifteen centuries later, in
the faces painted by Titian or Rembrandt's self-portraits made using the
mirror, that once again the same artistic skill of the anonymous painters of
the Fayum is reached. In addition to the Greek tradition of painting which,
according to sources, reached its zenith at the time of Apelles in the fourth
century BC, there is the Egyptian influence (...). These two influences, the
sophistication of the first and the intensity of the second, combined to
produce moments of supreme beauty and unsettling intensity, in the paintings
that have survived” (Euphrosyne C. Doxiadis)
“Sarcophagus and lid of Dejet-Mut” about 1000
BC from Thebes
“Sarcophagus of wood plastered and painted
that belonged to the priestess Djet-Mut called 'wet-nurse of the god Montu',
the god of war. Like some others of the same period this sarcophagus preserved
at the museum comes from the vast necropolis of Deir el-Bahri, near Thebes,
used by members of the upper middle class of Egyptian society” (Web site of the
Vatican Museums - mv.vatican.va)
“Mummy of Deir el-Bahri in the sarcophagus”
about 1000 BC from Thebes
“The practice of mummification reached its
peak among the lower middle class of Egyptian society at the time of the XX-XXI
dynasties (1200-950 BC), as evidenced by the one in question belonging to a
large group of mummies placed in mass-produced stuccoed and painted coffins,
found in the Necropolis of Deir el-Bahri in Thebes. It is a male mummy still
wrapped in its linen shroud on which some ornaments remained stuck (on the
chest there is a net with beads of paste blue glass)” (Web site of the Vatican
Museums - mv.vatican.va)
In
the side showcases:
“53 Ushebti figurines of the priest of Amon
Djet-Khonsu” XXI dynasty, about 1000 BC
Objects of everyday use: box, head
restraints, paddle, fan, sandals and wicker basket, 1300 BC, XX dyn.
“Model of boat” 2000 BC XII dynasty, from
Thebes
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