The Treasures of Ancient Egypt

The Treasures of Ancient Egypt:
The Collection of the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo

This book about the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is published by VMB Publishers, an imprint of White Star Books, which is based in Vercelli,

Italy

. It is edited by two Italian scholars: Alessandro Bongioanni and Maria Sole Croce. The texts about the ancient artifacts are written by six Italian scholars: Alessia Amenta, Daniela Comand, Silvia Einaudi, Marcella Trapani and the two editors. Most of them are connected with the University of Turin or the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

The preface is written by the Egyptian scholar Zahi Hawass, professor of Archaeology at the University of Cairo, and a well-known person from many documentaries on ancient

Egypt

. In his preface, he says:

“In total, the museum exhibits some 150,000 artifacts, with another 30,000 held in storage.”

It is indeed a huge collection. When you enter this museum, you will probably be overwhelmed by the large number of artifacts. Nobody can see everything. You have to make a choice. That is why it is good to have a guidebook like this:

** Before your visit, it can help you decide what you want to see
** During your visit, it can tell you what you are looking at
** After your visit, it can help you remember what you have seen

The book begins with the preface by Hawass, an introduction by Bongioanni, a note with practical information and a chronology.

The main text is divided into 17 chapters. Chapters 1-6 cover the ground floor where the artifacts are arranged in chronological order. Chapters 7-17 cover the first floor where the artifacts are arranged by topic or by archaeological context. The book concludes with a list of objects, a glossary of technical terms, a bibliography and an index.

The book is fully illustrated. All photos (except a few) are taken by the Italian photographer Araldo De Luca, who also took the pictures for the beautiful book Eternal Army about the first Chinese emperor. All photos (except a few) are in colour. Almost every page has is an illustration. Sometimes there is more than one picture of a particular object. Let me give you one example from pages 270-271: the casket from Tutankhamun’s tomb (in room 40) is seen from four different angles.

The layout of the book is very thoughtful and user-friendly. The picture and the description of a particular artifact are always placed next to each other, on the same page, or the opposite page. You do not have to turn the pages back and forth to compare the description with the picture. With every picture and description there is a small sidebar with basic information about the object: name, material, dimensions and some dates: when is this object from? When and where was it discovered? Finally, we have the location in the museum (the room number). Let me give you one example from page 102:

STATUE OF MENTUHOTEP II

Painted sandstone; height 138 cm
Deir Al Bahari, Funerary Temple of Mentuhotep II
Discovered by Howard Carter (1900)
Eleventh dynasty
Reign of Mentuhotep II (2065-2014 BC)
ROOM 26

The book presents the objects in accordance with the layout of the museum. A small map in the beginning of every chapter tells you what room (or rooms) this particular chapter covers. There is a large map of the ground floor on pages 20-21, and a large map of the first floor on pages 254-255. The rooms on the maps are colour-coded. Each colour corresponds to a particular chapter.

A book like this contains a large number of names and dates. As far as I can see, most of these names and dates are correct, but there are a few unfortunate mistakes:

* The sidebar on page 66 about the statue of Menkaure says it is located in “SALA 41.” This is Italian for Room 41. It seems the translator forgot to translate this word into English!

* The sidebar on page 217 about the block statue of Ahmes says it is from the 26th dynasty: “664-5255 BC.” But the 26th dynasty runs from 664 to 525 BC. The chronology on page 19 gives the correct date.

* On page 121, Silvia Einaudi mentions “Rameses II and Merenptah of the Ninth Dynasty…” But these pharaohs are from the nineteenth dynasty.

* In the chronology on page 18, the name Merenptah is spelled “Merneptah" (while some scholars prefer this spelling, I do not).

* On page 139 Marcella Trapani says: “Economic problems were added under the Twelfth Dynasty as demonstrated by the reduction in building during the reigns of Rameses III, IX, and XI.” But these pharaohs are from the twentieth dynasty.

* On page 134, Bongioanni mentions “the reign of Amenhotep IV (1346-1350 BC).” The dates have been reversed. It should be 1350-1346 BC. In 1346 BC, Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten and he ruled under this name until 1333 BC.

* On page 12, Bongioanni claims the tomb of Tutankhamun was “discovered intact in 1923.” But this is not true. The tomb was not intact, it was practically intact. It was not discovered in 1923, but in 1922. This well-known fact is mentioned later in the book: by Daniela Comand on page 257, and by Alessia Amenta on page 493.

On page 261, Daniela Comand explains how the tomb “had been broken into during ancient times.” On the following pages, the thieves and the evidence of their activities in the tomb are mentioned several times: 280, 283, 291, 292, 301, 306, 320, and 330.

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb was - and still is - the most important and famous event in the history of Egyptian archaeology. Today, most objects from the tomb are placed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo where they occupy more than ten rooms on the first floor. Chapter 7 of this book is dedicated to the objects from this tomb. How could Bongioanni – one of the editors of the book - get the basic facts so wrong?

However, I have to say this is the only serious mistake I have noted in this book. Everything else seems to be in order.

If you are going to

Egypt

to see (some of) the ancient monuments, you will probably have an unforgettable experience. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is a good place to start a trip to different locations in

Egypt, a

nd The Treasures of Ancient Egypt can help you make the most of your visit to this important museum.

* * *

Alessandro Bongioanni and Maria Sole Croce (editors),

The Treasures of Ancient Egypt:

The Collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,

VMB Publishers, White Star Books, 2003, reprinted 2006, 632 pages

* * *