Egyptian collection

The Egyptian Collection, second in importance only to the Egyptian Museum in Turin, was established between the second and third decades of the nineteenth century with the purchase of materials by the Naples museum from private collections (Borgia and Picchianti collections) and the Bourbon excavations in the Vesuvian and Phlegrean areas. The collection provides ample evidence of Egyptian civilisation from the Ancient Kingdom until the Ptolemaic-Roman period.

History and formation The Egyptian Collection, second in importance only to the Egyptian Museum in Turin, was established between the second and third decades of the nineteenth century with the purchase of materials by the Naples museum from private collections and the Bourbon excavations in the Vesuvian and Phlegrean areas. Marked by the presence of various collections which differ in terms of taste, period and formation, the collection is of great importance for documenting the history of collecting as well as containing interesting archaeological evidence. The only exhibit of Egyptian origin from is the Farnese Collection is Naoforo, a statue depicting a kneeling figure with an aedicule in his hand (naòs, from which the current term naoforo derives) inside of which is the god Osiris. Rooms XIX - XXI of the museum contain the main part of the Egyptian section which came from the Borgia collection, formed during the second half of the eighteenth century by Cardinal Stefano Borgia, a person of great learning who was interested in history and antiquities. The cardinal, who had already inherited a collection of ancient objects found around Rome and Velletri, was passionately interested in increasing his collection to the extent that he turned it into a museum. His involvement in political and religious fields, and the posts he was given by the papacy, helped Borgia in his interest in collecting ancient objects. In particular, his post as Secretary and later Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which he held at a particularly delicate moment for the Jesuits and the Catholic missions abroad, was of fundamental importance for the Church. Indeed, he encouraged the formation of indigenous priests in the missions, especially in the East, and this reduced the hostility of local populations to religious institutions. The success he obtained earned him the esteem and gratitude of missionaries and foreign envoys who started to bring him back gifts from the places where they were working. Borgia began to receive many objects from Egypt, as well as Coptic manuscripts which he managed to obtain at his own request, so that he was able to create the largest collection of its kind to be established during this period. On the cardinal’s death in 1804, the collection was partly donated to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith while the remaining part was inherited by his nephew Camillo who tried to sell it first to the King of Denmark and then to Gioacchino Murat, then King of Naples, who has the merit of its purchase in 1814, although the details were not finalised until the return of the Bourbons under King Ferdinand I in 1815. The Borgia Collection, one of the oldest in the history of European collecting, illustrates a phase of interest in Egypt that predates the interest created by the Napoleonic expedition (1798 - 1799) and reflects the typical antiquarian taste of the period of its formation, shown by the statues turned into busts of head-portraits, or by many objects of a funerary and magical-religious nature discovered mainly in the areas which were most easily accessible to Europeans in the eighteenth century, namely the area of the Delta and Memphis. The most important Neapolitan collection after the Borgia one is the Picchianti collection. Giuseppe Picchianti was a nineteenth century of Venetian origin who was so fascinated by the clamour surrounding the discoveries made by the Paduan traveller Belzoni and by the trade in ancient objects that he embarked on a journey in 1819 that lasted about six years, during which he travelled up the Nile Valley until he reached the Nubian Desert. During his travels, he visited the archaeological sites of greatest interest for collectors such as Giza, Saqqara and Thebes, and from these sites collected a considerable amount of material, probably deriving from funerary contexts, which suited the tastes for the exotic and macabre of certain sectors of nineteenth century society. His collection consisted of mummies, sarcophagi, canopic vases, but also grave goods which reflected aspects of everyday life such as mirrors, vases for cosmetics and sandals. After returning to Italy, Picchianti tried unsuccessfully to sell his collection to the King of Saxony. A part of the material was subsequently sold by Picchianti to the British Museum while another part was purchased by the Museum of Naples from his widow, the countess Angelica Droso. RouteRoom XIX contains all the statues of the collection that span a chronological period of about three thousand years, from the beginning of the Ancient Kingdom to the Ptolomeic-Roman period. The oldest exhibit is a statue of an official of the Third Dynasty (2700 - 2640 BC) known as the “Dama di Napoli” (Lady of Naples). The funerary monument of Imen-em-inet in black granite and the sculptural group of the couple Pa-en-dua and his wife Nesha, carved in basalt, date to the New Kingdom, and more precisely to the Nineteenth Dynasty (1308 - 1194 BC). Fragments of obelisks of the pharaonic and Roman periods are also on display in the same room. Room XX contains several grave goods, a series of votive objects and various Horus stelae, special slabs which were considered to provide magic protection for the owner against various dangers and the threats posed by dangerous animals. The funerary assemblage consisted, for example, of ushabty, statuettes made of wood, stone and faïence in the form of mummies depicting entities that could work in the afterworld in the place of the deceased. The collection also includes three sarcophagi of different construction and date: a fragment of the basalt sarcophagus of Pa-ir-kap of the Thirtieth Dynasty and two anthropoid sarcophagi in painted stuccoed wood of the Greco-Roman period containing mummies which do not belong. Room XXI contains a series of inscriptions and nineteenth century plastercasts which offer an overview of the different forms of writing in use in Egypt, from its origins to demotic and Greek. The famous “Charta Borgiana”, a papyrus written in cursive script in Greek dating to the second century AD is on display here. The same room also contains several objects from Campania, in particular from the Vesuvian sites. The excavations of these sites have produced numerous Egyptian or Egyptianising objects, which were used both for ritual purposes in Isian temples, such as the stele of Samtowetefnakhte in the Temple of Isis in Pompeii, and simply as fashionable objects, whose popularity grew after the conquest of Augustus in 30 BC, such as the votive table in black basalt of Psammetico II, reused as the threshold in the Casa del Doppio Larario in Pompeii. Rooms XXII and XXIII house the Picchianti Collection. The first room contains, amongst other exhibits, a considerable number of vases datable to the first dynasties of the Ptolomeic-Roman period, funerary stelae, and a rich collection of ushabty, many of which form homogeneous groups, such as the 114 pieces which belong to a person named Her-udja who lived in the Thirtieth Dynasty. The same room also contains a mummy of a crocodile, together with two baby crocodiles. Room XXIII contains four mummies, three from the Picchianti Collection (two adults and one child), as well as another one donated by Emilio Stevens. There are also several grave goods and a considerable number of amulets, including a scarab, which ensured perpetual rebirth, the udjat eye or the eye of Horus, which guaranteed health, the djed pilasters which may depict the spinal column of Osiris and alluded to the stability of the sky. The Egyptian section also contains several objects of various provenance and some minor collections such as the Schnars collection, assembled by a German traveller who visited various sites in Upper and Lower Egypt and whose small collection was donated to the Museum in 1842.