The museum was built in 1932 to house the numerous antiquities discovered while digging the Suez canal (1859-1869). Over time more artefacts were included from different sites such as Tell el-Maskhuta, the ancient city of Pithom ("House of Atum"), at Wadi Tumilat. On this site during Dynasty 26, the pharaoh Necho II (610-595 B.C.) started digging a canal to connect the Nile with the Red Sea. This immense task was completed much later under the Persian king, Darius I (522-486 B.C.), an event confirmed on the so-called canal stelae. The importance of Tell el-Maskhuta has been known since 1883 when the site was excavated by the Swiss Egyptologist Edouard N
aville. The number of objects found by him was later added to by the French archaeologist Jean Clédat who worked at Tell el-Maskhuta in the early years of the 20th century.
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| Head of a statue of the priest of Bastet Wa-ka-ra-men from Tell el-Maskhuta |
The finely modelled scarab on top of the priest's head |
The finds from Tell el-Maskhuta include the statue head of a Libyan official, who lived during Dynasty 22. It was made of dark red, silicified sandstone. A priest is shown wearing a bipartite wig, finely detailed with echeloned curls, and topped by a large scarab in high relief. The inscription on the back pillar identifies the head as that of the priest of the goddess Bastet Wa-ka-ra-men. He played an important role in the nearby ancient city of Bubastis. The head is a rare example of the sculptural school of Lower Egypt during that period. A well-preserved block statue of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, priest of Amun at Karnak, was found in Upper Egypt. It dates to the early Ptolemaic Period (around 300 B.C.) and had been set up at the temple of Karnak.
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Block statue of the priest of Amun,
Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, from Karnak |
Osiris together with Isis and the falcon-headed Horus |
Another highlight of the museum is the nearly intact sphinx at the entrance to the museum, which bears the name of the pharaoh Rameses the Great (below). But closer examination proves it is of much earlier date and was one of the famous maned sphinxes of king Amenemhat III (Dynasty 12, c. 1853-1806 B.C.) More of these can be seen at the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. After almost 600 years it was altered to become a portrait of the youthful king Rameses II (1279-1213 B.C.). Traces of this remodelling are still clearly visible.
Along both sides of the exhibition room stand display cases filled with smaller objects dating from the Middle Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period. One of the most impressive items is a rather unusual votive stela dating to the Late Period (Dynasties 26-30, c. 664-342 B.C.). Its iconography is reminiscent of statues of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods. Instead of a mummiform shape, the god Osiris, ruler of the Netherworld, is shown wearing a simple loincloth and penis-sheath. On top of his tripartite wig he wears the so-called atef-crown adorned with ram's horns and ostrich feathers (above).
