Cation of the Burial Chamber of the Tomb of Amenhotep II, KV35. Oppo
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View of the exhibiton’s full-scale repli - cation of the burial chamber of the Tomb of Amenhotep II, KV35. Oppo - site, The signature work in the exhibi - tion is a seated small limestone statue of Amenho tep II from the Karnak Ca - chette, on loan to Milan’s Museum of Cul- ture from the Cairo Egyptian Museum. Kmt 18 THE REMARKABLE DISCOVERY OF AMENHOTEP II An Exhibition in Milan by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli Photos courtesy the Exhibition s reported in my article “The Egyptology Archives of the University of Milan” ( Kmt , Volume 23, No. 3, summer 2012), the Uni - versity of Milan was founded in 1924. Ser - gio Donadoni was appointed its first professor of EAgyptology in 1951; he left in 1961 to teach at the University of Rome. After Donadoni’s departure the chair of Egyptology remained vacant until 1993, when the position was filled by Patrizia Piacentini. The article goes on to recount Piacentini’s founding of the University’s Egyptology Archives — today world renown — with its first purchase in 1999 of the complete library of the late German Egyptol - ogist Elmar Edel (1914-1997), from the antiquarian bookseller Ars Libri in Boston. Three years later, again from Ars Libri, Piacentini purchased the arch- ives of the French Egyptologist Alexandre Varille (1909-1951). “Much to our joy, we discovered,” Pia - centini told me during my first visit to the Archives in February 2012, “that with the Varille Archive — very special in its own right — were conserved the archives of his professor at the University of Lyons, Victor Loret [1859-1946] .” “I knew,” Piacentini told me recently, “that Varille’s Archive would contain some of his mentor’s papers, but not necessarily his journals, notes, drawings and photographs from his excavation of Amenhotep II’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1898, an unbelievable treasure.” “It had long been thought,” Piacentini had 19 Kmt told me for the earlier Kmt article, “that letic prowess, although his reign (1427- Loret was a kind of slapdash archeolo - 1401 BC) was overshadowed by the fame gist, but now we know he was a thorough of his powerful and long-ruling father, and precise excavator in the tombs of the Thutmose III (1479-1427), inarguably Valley of the Kings. His discovery there Egypt’s greatest “Warrior King” (see side- in March 1898 of Amenhotep II’s tomb, bar, pp. 28-29). KV35, containing the pharaoh’s mummy, Although the exhibition’s beau - is considered one of the top ten of Egyp - tiful catalogue is only in Italian, the wall tology.” 1, 2 He also discovered during panels and captions are also in English, his two seasons of excavating in the Val - as is the audio-guide. ley of the Kings the tombs of Thutmose The inspiration for this exhibi - III (KV34), Thutmose I (KV38) [see ar - tion, Piacentini and Christian Or senigo, ticle this issue] and Maiherpri (KV36) its curators, write in the catalogue’s in - [see article in Kmt 28:2, summer 2017]. troduction dates to around ten years ago, Loret’s documentation of his when in May 2008 they, with Wafaa el discoveries was seemingly lost after his Saddik, then director of Cairo’s Egyptian death in 1946 (except to Varille) and cer - Museum, and her assistant, now succes - tainly after Varille’s death in 1951, until sor, Sabah Abdel Razek, organized the its purchase in 2002 and its publication Cairo exhibition, “Victor Loret, in Egypt in 2004. Now, until January 7, many of (1881-1899). From the Archives of Milan these original documents, watercolors University to the Egyptian Museum in and drawings by Loret are on display for Cairo.” “Here we told Loret’s story,” Pi - the first time in a splendid exhibition, acentini recounts, “his research and ex - “The Remarkable Discovery of Pharaoh cavations and its outcomes, and put on Amenhotep II,” at Milan’s Museum of display some of the important artifacts Culture (MUDEC), a former factory and he discovered during his fruitful excava - fine example of urban renewal which op- Top & opposite, Views of the MUDEC tions at Sakkara and in the Valley of the ened in 2015 at Via Tortona 56. This is gallery with royal statuary. Above, One Kings. It was our dream to bring and dis- also the first museum exhibition devoted of which is a red-granite image of Amen- play the exhibition’s contents one day in hotep II under the protection of the god solely to Amenhotep II, seventh ruler of Thoth in his baboon incarnation, on Milan.” the Eighteenth Dynasty, renowned in his loan from the Kunsthistoriches Muse- Thus the present exhibition has lifetime for his physical strength and ath - um in Vienna. a double intent (or “rediscovery”): firstly, Kmt 20 21 Kmt that of Amenhotep II’s life and achieve - spring of 2018), the Archaeology Muse- ments; and, secondly, that of Loret’s ma- um in Florence, the Rijksmuseum van jor archeological discovery. After an in - Oudheden in Leiden, the Kunsthistorisch- teractive multi-media film at its entrance es Museum in Vienna and private collec - about Amenhotep II’s life (the importance tions. These include statues, stela, wea- of his father, his privileged childhood at pons, jewelry, items of daily life at court, court, his friends who became his advi - burial assemblages and mummies. sors, his early military campaigns, his The catalogue’s introduction tells peaceful reign, the monuments he built us that Section I, “The Pharaoh’s Days” which remain today: his temple at Giza, recounts Amenhotep II’s genealogy and his temple of “Million of Years” and his his life, through several statues of Thut - tomb), the exhibition is divided into four mose III and Amenhotep II plus a re - sections: “The Pharaoh’s Days,” “Daily markable stela (one of the exhibition’s Life of the Upper Classes,” “From Death stars, where father and son are both de - to Life” and “The Extraordinary Discov - picted facing each other). The beginning ery of Amenhotep II’s Tomb.” of his twenty-six-year reign was high - Concluding space of the exhibi - lighted by military expeditions to con - tion is a full-scale replication of the “char- solidate the vast em pire his father had iot hall” of Amenhotep II’s tomb, KV35, built from the Euphrat es to the Nile’s Se- the brainchild of Italian Egyptologist cond Cataract. The ba lance of his rule, he Massimiliana Pozzi Battaglia, coordina - concentrated on main taining peace and tor of the exhibition’s displays. “Our idea prosperity, as well as finishing his fa - and aim here,” she told me during my ther’s building projects at Amada and September 8th visit, “is to transmit our Karnak, and building his own memorial passion for ancient Egypt and to grab the Two other depictions of Amenhotep II temple of “Millions of Years” on the west in the exhibition are — frontal detail curiosity of the average visitor about an opposite & profile view at top — the bank at Waset (modern Luxor). Discov - otherwise dry intellec tual subject by in - limestone small statue of the king in the ered by Flinders Petrie, since 1997 it has troducing multi-media.” guise of a sphinx; & the other, above, a been excavated by the Centro Italiano di Besides items from Milan Uni - now-headless granite statue of the en - Egittologia in Como, under the director - versity’s Egyptological archives, some throned king holding a heqa scepter. ship of Angelo Sesana. 3 As the wall pan- Both sculptures were found in the Kar - 260 artifacts are on loan from the Cairo nak Cachette & are on loan to the ex- el “Excavations of the Temple ‘Of Mil - Egyptian Museum, Milan’s Archaeology hitbition from the Cairo Egyptian Mus- lions of Years’ of Amenophis II” tells us: Museum (closed for restoration until the eum. “The many temples of ‘Millions of Years,’ 23 Kmt Several objects found by Victor Loret in 1898 in the anciently looted KV35 include, above, a wooden under-life-sized bitumen-painted striding pan - ther, which once bore a figure of Amenhotep II on its back (the wooden base is modern). Other similar examples are known from the tombs of Thut- mose III, Horemheb &, of course, Tutankhamen. Also from KV35 is a large, colorfully painted wooden boat (below), one of four found (plus remnants of others); Tutankhamen’s KV62 had numerous similar ritual river-ves sels. One of those in KV35, discovered in the tomb’s antechamber, support ed a de- secrated male mummy, which was later destroyed (& the model boat stolen ) when the tomb was broken into by modern robbers in 1902. Kmt 24 erroneously described as funerary, were evident in the statuary of Amenhotep II. ro; and another of him being protected very important economic and adminis - In fact, there are similarities between the by a baboon-deity from Vien na; as well trative centers. They also performed a portraits of the two sovereigns, not be - as a stela from a private col lection, which function in the divinization of the king, cause they resemble each other physi cal- also has never been loaned before and is not only after his death but also during ly, but because those of the son expres s the the focus of Christian Orsenigo’s accom - his life, ensuring that his name would explicit political desire to follow in his panying sidebar (p. 33). endure ‘a million years’.” father’s footsteps.” It is only after his fa - As mentioned above Amenho- As another wall panel states: ther’s death that statues of Amenhotep II tep II lived peacefully at court during his “Amenhotep II drew great inspiration depict him more muscular, with a wider childhood so, after he became to power, from his father Thutmose III, especially nose, and more prominent chin.