Egyptian and Italian antiquities in the University museum.Author(s): Nicholson, CharlesSource: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, (1898)Published by: The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60231672 .

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Egyptian and Italian Antiquities in

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The Grange, Totteridge, Herts,

April 9th, 1898. My dear Mere-wether,

As I left the colony on my first visit to England in the early part df 1856, during my absence I ceased to have any active connection with the local affairs of the University for some two years or more, but I was fortunate enough to secure your services, and those of other enthusiastic supporters of the institution, with the growth of which you and they were identified.

During my temporary sojourn in the Old World, it was my privilege, and to me a

subject of unspeakable satisfaction, to be enabled to serve the University, in a manner, and to an extent which I could have little anticipated when I started, in the collection of Egyptian Antiquities and Roman Sculptures, now deposited in the University; objects of interest and instruction were obtained by me, and form a collection of objects which it would now be impossible to obtain, and to which the to me proud distinction, has been accorded, of attaching my name. Several of the objects in the Egyptian series are unique and of almost ipriceless value, of which I may instance fragments of Sculpture bearing the royal cognomen of |Kuenhaten, the King of the heretical dynasty of the Disk-Worshippers, found at Mit-Rahench, near Memphis, and belonging to the 14th century B.C. A sculptured head of the Queen of Tirhakah, with the name engraved on the back; of the three royal names, which are found in the Biblical Eecords, and bearing the inscription—" Suten Henit Tirhakah," "The Eoyal wifn of Tirhakah." Tirhakah is mentioned in II. Kings, xix., as having come to assist King Eezekiah at the invasion of Sennacherib.

A coffin lid, probably that of an Amenophis; several yards of inscribed mummy-cloth, and a bilingual sepulchral slab, representing a Carian soldier, with Hieroglyphic and Carian Script.

Also numerous fragments of the Ritual of the Book of the Dead, an unopened mummy case, and various other objects of scarcely less Antiquarian interest.

Dissociated from these, and in a separate department, are the Roman and Etruscan Sepulchral remains and vases. The former consist of a number of Cenotaphs, the coloured Sculptured ornaments of which are still quite perfect, and amongst the most pjerfect that ever left Italy; and as specimens of Etruscan Sculpture are superior to anything in the British Museum of the same character.

I There are also in the same department several Sepulchral Slabs from the Catacombs,

near Rome and Naples. The former I purchased from Signor Rossi, the collector of Antiquities Rome, and I believe are described by him in one of his publications on the Antiquities of

i. Those from Naples I purchased a few days after their excavation. These several and objects forming the group, whatever antiquarian and historical interest they may possess

Inot be locally appreciated at their value at present; the Egyptian collection, however, fins objects which are enumerated in all the leading works on Egyptology. K

A National Museum is being established at Ghizeh, of all objects of antiquarian interest, and the administrators of the establishment are anxious to obtain copies or photographs of the chief objects in all the Museums throughout the civilized world; and I recently received a com¬ munication from Lord Cromer, through the Foreign Secretary, asking for contributions of

representations of objects in the University of Sydney, a request which I believe the Senate of the University have promptly complied with. Before closing this detail, a few contributions made to the Library of the University may be mentioned, among them I may enumerate an early copy of the Magna Charta, and a Hebrew MS. of the 12th century, containing a considerable portion of the Pentateuch as used in the Synagogue.

I must not, however, weary you with further details, and forbear entering into matters with which you are as conversant as I am.

Believe me, Yours very faithfully,

(Signed) 0. IRICHOLSON.

F. L. S. Merewether, Esq.

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