EGYPT in PISA by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli
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EGYPT IN PISA by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli Torso segment of a y article “Mummies: A Journey Into Immortality” in the winter 2019-20 life-sized statue of Amenhotep III, found issue of the Journal (Vol. 30, No. 4,) concluded with: “The exhibition at Soleb in Nubia & ends with an excellent video of Guidotti [director of the Egyptian collec - today in the Egyptian collection of the Uni - tion in Florence] and the University of Pisa Egyptologist Dr. Flora Sil - versity of Pisa. vano discussing mummification techniques and how those evolved over M time.” My list of Italian museums with Egyptian collections does not in- 41 Kmt Left, Native of Pisa & father of Italian Egyptology Ippolito Rosellini (1800-1843) in a de - tail of a large painting by Guiseppe Angelelli depicting members of the Franco-Tuscan Ex - pedition to Egypt, 1828-1829. Above, Engraved frontispiece of Rosellini’s I Monumenti dell’Egitto e della Nubia , published in five volumes (1832-1844). clude Pisa, so I contacted Associate Prof. second-most important plaza, mag nificent an “adopted” one. Birga’s actual name Flora Silvano at Pisa’s University, to Piazza dei Cavalieri, or Knights’ Square. was Sofia Massimina Francesca Livia. find out more. A short walk away is Piazza dei Miraco- Her mother was Laura Rosellini, the From doing the research for my li, or Square of Miracles, where the city’s second to the last of Gaetano Rosellini’s article “Egypt on the Arno” (15:2, Sum - cathedral and baptistery and famous six children. Gaetano was the brother of mer 2004), and from Dennis Forbes’s Leaning Tower are located. Giovanbattista, Ippolito Rosellini’s fa - Giant of Egyptology (30:3, Fall 2019), The collection comprising a ther. Born on April 2, 1796, he was only “Ippolito Rosellini (1800-1843),” I al - total of 1,960 artifacts comes from four four years older than his more famous ready knew that red-haired Rosellini, main sources, much of it on exhibit in nephew. An architect and engineer, he considered the father of Italian Egyptol - two rooms. The majority of the artifacts too participated in the Franco-Tuscan ogy, had been born in Pisa; taught orien - date from the New Kingdom onwards Expedition. When its official architect tal languages and Hebrew at the Uni- — particularly from Sudan’s Meroitic and director of excavations, Frenchman versity of Pisa, where he started that in - Kingdom from the Third Century BC to Antoine Bibent, came down with malar- stitution’s first-ever Department of Eg- the Third century AD — with nothing ia and returned to France, Gaetano took yptology in 1826; became a disciple and from the Old and Middle kingdoms, but his place and made many drawings of friend of Champollion; participated with with some Predynastic arrowheads. The temple and tomb reliefs. “Today the me- the Frenchman in the joint Franco-Tus - artifacts are mostly small — jewelry, ga work of the Expedition , I Monumenti can Expedition to Egypt and Nubia (Ju- scarabs, amulets, potsherds, statuettes of dell’Egitto e della Nubia di Ippolito Ro- ly 31,1828- November 27,1829); and that deities, ushabti, ostraca — and one long- sellini — which also contains drawings his personal collection of antiquities is term loaned “mummy” and its coffin. by Gae tano — is in the Pisa University today main ly in Florence. The collection officially dates Library,” Dr. Silvano wrote me in an to 1962, thanks to an initial donation of email dated March 19. 1 Pisa’s Egyptian collection belongs for some 100 artifacts: the Picozzi collec - the most part to the University of Pisa tion by Livio and Giuseppina Barbara In 1964 the University received another and hence is not on my list of museums. Picozzi, the children of Laura Birga Pi - donation: the Michela Schiff-Giorgini Since 1994 it’s been located on the first cozzi. After considerable research Dr. collection of some 400 Egyptian arti - floor at Via San Frediano 12 (<https:// Silvano disco vered that Laura was a facts. Schiff-Giorgini (1923-78), wife of www.egitto.sma.unipi.it>), off the city’s nickname of sorts, really more accurately Giorgio, a prominent banker from Pisa, Kmt 42 had excavated with her husband’s and the University’s sponsorship from 1956- 1977, during numerous campaigns in Sudan, at Soleb and Sedeinga, between the Nile’s Second and Third cataracts. Half of the finds or partage from Schiff- Giorgini’s excavations remains in Sudan, on display in Khartoum’s National Mu - seum of Sudan; those in Pisa, however, constitute one of the largest collections from these two sites outside Sudan. In addition to the artifacts, Schiff-Giorgini also donated her correspondence, exca - vation diaries and the individual artifact- information cards. “It seems that Michela Schiff- Giorgini, the first archaeologist to exca - vate in Nubia, chose these two sites,” Avove, General view of the greatly ruined Amenhotep III temple at Soleb in Nubia. Adapted Flora Silvano told me during my visit to Internet photo Below, Italian archaeologist Michela Schiff-Giorgini (1923-1978) photograph- the collection just before Christmas 2019, ed among the ruins of Soleb during one of her many campaigns excavating the site — & at “because during Amenhotep III’s reign nearby Sedeinga — from 1956-1977. University of Pisa photo the Egyptian empire greatly expanded. It was a period of unprecedented pros - perity and splendor, when Egypt reach- ed its peak of artistic and international power. Even the so-called ‘minor arts’ were rich and appreciated. She probably was also interested in the shrewd per - sonality and noteworthy success of Am- enhotep III.” The Pisa collection’s third source , pur - chased by the University in 1968 — and its only antiquities purchase — is of some 1,500 ostraca on fragments of terracotta and dromedary bones, from Oxyrhyn- chus. Their texts, a literal archive in de - motic, concern commerce: letters, mem- os, financial accounts, lists of the vari - ous goods (mostly grain) and records of their transport between Oxyrhynchus and the oasis at Bahariya. The fourth source is another donation . In 2001 Monica Benvenuti, a business - woman from Livorno (Leghorn), pur - chased fourteen bronze utensils from the Librarie-Gallerie Cybèle in Paris, donat - ing these to the Pisa Egyptian collection. There are fou r adze blades, one knife blade, five chisels, three axe blades and a rasp. The name of Thutmose III is en - graved on three of the chisels, with t he formula: The perfect god Menkhep erre, beloved by Amen-Re. Engraved on one 43 Kmt from 1939-41, Evaristo Breccia (1876- 1967) was the director of the Graeco- Roman Museum in Alexandria, 1904- 1932, and he conducted numerous exca - vations in the Nile Delta near Alexan - dria, in the Fayum, at Giza, Hermopolis, Oxyrhynchus, El Hibeh and Antinoupo - lis — until 1933 when he returned to Italy because of a serious illness. From then until his death he was professor of Greek and Roman history at the Univer - sity. The Schiff-Giorgini collection is display- ed in the first room. Its centerpiece is the star of the entire collection, without a View of the first of the Universty of Pisa Museum’s two rooms. On display here are the ar - doubt, a blown (probably in Alexandria) tifacts of the Schiff-Giorgini Egyptian collection. University of Pisa photo blue-glass goblet decorated with enamel and gilding and beautifully restored. It of the adze blades is The perfect God: of Lucca in 1930, and herself a graduate was discovered in 1970 — together with Menkheperre, beloved by Hathor the of the Pisa University, she is known for another very similar one now in the mu - Lady of Dendera , which indicates that her excavations of the Tomb of Baken - se um at Khartoum — in a tomb at Se dein- its provenance is the Temple of Hathor renef — a vizier — at Sakkara, and of a ga. “Both were found smashed, each in at Dendera. Engraved on another axe- Middle Kingdom cemetery at Khelua; about eighty pieces,” Dr. Silvano told blade is the name of Hatshepsut: “The she is also the author of numerous pub - me, “probably on purpose, during a fu - perfect God, Maatkare, daughter of Re, lications. nerary ritual which took place in the Khemem-Amen, may she live for eternity.” In addition to artifacts, but not tomb. The inscriptions, below the rim, on display, Paolina Salluzzi, the widow are in Greek on both gob lets — with “In addition to these four sources,” Dr. of Egyptologist Evaristo Breccia, donat- squarish letters on ours and rounder ones Flora Silvano continued, “We have other ed to the University her husband’s arch- on Khartoum’s — and say ‘Drink so artifacts from private donations and from ives: his correspondence (more than that you can live’. The inscriptions are the excavations conducted in Egypt by 2,000 letters), manuscripts, drawings very early pagan ver sions of what later our head professor-emeritus, Edda Bre- and photographic plates, all consultable became a widely used Chris tian prayer. sciani.” Born in the nearby walled town on the Internet. The University’s provost The central decoration depicts Osiris Sandstone relief-fragment depicting Amenhotep III, excavated at Soleb during Schiff- Giorgini’s 1960-61 campaign. University of Pisa photo Kmt 44 Objects not to scale. seated on his throne, three people — two men and a woman — bear ing him vari - ous offerings: animals and food. Above and below the inscriptions and central decoration, geometric designs encircle the goblets.” Another highlight from Sedeinga is the top half of a small bronze statue of Osi- ris, dating to the Third Century AD. Its face is covered in gold-leaf. The god is wearing the Atef crown surmounted by a sun disk and decorated with a uraeus.