in G. Miniaci, C. Greco, P. Del Vesco, M. Mancini, C. Alù (eds), Digging for Ancient Egypt and Egyptology in the Archives, Studies presented to Marilina Betrò, vol. III, 2024
In 1841, Pope Gregory XVI sent three boats to Egypt with the agreement of the Khedivé of Egypt to... more In 1841, Pope Gregory XVI sent three boats to Egypt with the agreement of the Khedivé of Egypt to obtain the alabaster needed to rebuild St. Paul’s Basilica, which a recent fire had destroyed.
The Pope took advantage of the circumstance to send some scholars to explore the country and collect antiquities, natural history, zoology, various other materials, and valuable manuscripts. This was an extraordinary event, as never before had a European ship gone as far as Aswan. Also in the intentions was to plan the transport of the obelisk of Sesostris I from Heliopolis to Vatican, to crown the new Gregorian Egyptian Museum, as Father Luigi Maria Ungarelli had hoped.
In light of interesting new archival documents, we intend to highlight the most interesting aspects of this expedition, which represents the only official scientific mission of a pontiff to the Nile Valley.
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The Pope took advantage of the circumstance to send some scholars to explore the country and collect antiquities, natural history, zoology, various other materials, and valuable manuscripts. This was an extraordinary event, as never before had a European ship gone as far as Aswan. Also in the intentions was to plan the transport of the obelisk of Sesostris I from Heliopolis to Vatican, to crown the new Gregorian Egyptian Museum, as Father Luigi Maria Ungarelli had hoped.
In light of interesting new archival documents, we intend to highlight the most interesting aspects of this expedition, which represents the only official scientific mission of a pontiff to the Nile Valley.
project that studies the Egyptian wooden polychrome coffins of the Third
Intermediate Period. One of its most important goals is the econstruction of the original painting technique. Egyptian polychrome coffins may be considered as representing the earliest panel paintings in the history of Western art, but the study of their production has focused on workshops and sources of materials rather than how the technical knowledge of
production techniques was dispersed outside Egypt. Before Mediæval times, there were no treatises on painting describing the artistic
culture and the painting techniques. Comparative study of the technical and analytic data obtained in the course of the Vatican Coffin Project and the Mediæval sources reveal not only the construction technique of Egyptian coffins but also that Mediæval panel painting represents an ‘uninterrupted’ tradition founded on ancient Egypt coffin painting.
From this new point of view, re-reading Cennini’s ‘A Treatise on Painting’ permits us to state that ‘Giotto mirrored the ancient Egyptian manner of painting’.
The project also aims to recover new data on the collecting history of the Gregorian Egyptian Museum.
https://www.vicino-oriente-journal.it/index.php/vicino-oriente/article/view/82
important information on the biological profile and on any pathological conditions present during lifetime of the individual. In addition, this study also focused on the embalming technique employed to preserve the body of the deceased. One important outcome was the correct identification of the deceased as a male individual, as opposed to female as previously thought.
2008 by the Egyptian Department of the Vatican Museums. The project is concerned with the polychrome coffins of the Third Intermediate Period. Its first goal is the study of the construction techniques of these coffins, and the second, the identification of any “workshop”. The first coffins to be studied for the project were those from the cachette of Bab el-Gasus, primarily because they represent a coherent corpus for dating, provenance, and commissioning. The first results of the analyses concerning the painting techniques are presented here.
with an image of Pataikos on crocodiles. This
iconography makes this gem an unicum in the production
of magical amulets. The presence of Pataikos and of a
pantheistic trigram on the recto, together with voces
magicae on the verso, offers interesting hints and
information on magic in the Late antiquity.
The Pope took advantage of the circumstance to send some scholars to explore the country and collect antiquities, natural history, zoology, various other materials, and valuable manuscripts. This was an extraordinary event, as never before had a European ship gone as far as Aswan. Also in the intentions was to plan the transport of the obelisk of Sesostris I from Heliopolis to Vatican, to crown the new Gregorian Egyptian Museum, as Father Luigi Maria Ungarelli had hoped.
In light of interesting new archival documents, we intend to highlight the most interesting aspects of this expedition, which represents the only official scientific mission of a pontiff to the Nile Valley.
project that studies the Egyptian wooden polychrome coffins of the Third
Intermediate Period. One of its most important goals is the econstruction of the original painting technique. Egyptian polychrome coffins may be considered as representing the earliest panel paintings in the history of Western art, but the study of their production has focused on workshops and sources of materials rather than how the technical knowledge of
production techniques was dispersed outside Egypt. Before Mediæval times, there were no treatises on painting describing the artistic
culture and the painting techniques. Comparative study of the technical and analytic data obtained in the course of the Vatican Coffin Project and the Mediæval sources reveal not only the construction technique of Egyptian coffins but also that Mediæval panel painting represents an ‘uninterrupted’ tradition founded on ancient Egypt coffin painting.
From this new point of view, re-reading Cennini’s ‘A Treatise on Painting’ permits us to state that ‘Giotto mirrored the ancient Egyptian manner of painting’.
The project also aims to recover new data on the collecting history of the Gregorian Egyptian Museum.
https://www.vicino-oriente-journal.it/index.php/vicino-oriente/article/view/82
important information on the biological profile and on any pathological conditions present during lifetime of the individual. In addition, this study also focused on the embalming technique employed to preserve the body of the deceased. One important outcome was the correct identification of the deceased as a male individual, as opposed to female as previously thought.
2008 by the Egyptian Department of the Vatican Museums. The project is concerned with the polychrome coffins of the Third Intermediate Period. Its first goal is the study of the construction techniques of these coffins, and the second, the identification of any “workshop”. The first coffins to be studied for the project were those from the cachette of Bab el-Gasus, primarily because they represent a coherent corpus for dating, provenance, and commissioning. The first results of the analyses concerning the painting techniques are presented here.
with an image of Pataikos on crocodiles. This
iconography makes this gem an unicum in the production
of magical amulets. The presence of Pataikos and of a
pantheistic trigram on the recto, together with voces
magicae on the verso, offers interesting hints and
information on magic in the Late antiquity.
La costituzione di un museo come strumento didattico da affiancare ai corsi, oltre alla biblioteca, ai soggiorni all’estero, alle conferenze e alle pubblicazioni, rappresenta uno degli obiettivi del nascituro Pontificio Istituto Biblico sin dal primo progetto di fondazione. La selezione dei reperti non fu dunque per il loro pregio estetico o per la loro unicità, quanto piuttosto per il valore documentario di aree geografiche e fasi storiche di interesse per gli studi propri dell’istituzione stessa. La sua formazione è stata graduale, a partire dalla fondazione stessa dell’Istituto nel 1909.
La raccolta vicino-orientale del Pontificio Istituto Biblico conserva reperti che coprono un arco cronologico molto ampio, dal Paleolitico fino all’età islamica. I materiali provengono da quella vasta regione che va dalla Galilea settentrionale, a nord, fino al Mar Morto, a sud, con i siti di Umm al-Rasas e Khirbet en-Nahas nel deserto giordano, comprendendo la Cisgiordania e la Transgiordania, dove sono documentati, tra gli altri, importanti insediamenti come Gerico, Teleilat el-Ghassul, Gerusalemme, Qumran e Lachish. A questi si aggiungono siti distribuiti su un territorio che include Iran, Iraq, Siria, Turchia e Cipro.
Mancava ancora una visione di insieme e una pubblicazione sistematica di tutto il materiale. La Collezione è presentata nella sua totalità in una coralità di studiosi specialisti nei vari settori, che ne hanno ricostruito anche le complesse vicende collezionistiche, grazie a uno scrupoloso lavoro di ricerca archivistica.
This volume thus represents the awakening of the international scientific community for the significance and importance of the Tomb of the Priests as a major archaeological find, one that can open new perspectives in the study of the Third Intermediate Period in Thebes.