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 (
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. On the shoulders are traces of the heka scepter and the nechech fan, both in re - lief. The statue’s head in the full round is minutely and exquisitely executed; in - stead its body seems to have been made in a mold, with the back unfinished. “The other highlights from the Above, Steatite “Lion Hunt”com memora - Schiff-Giorgini collection,” Flora Silva- tive scarab of Amen- no continued, “are from Soleb. One is a hotep III, found in a gilded-bronze mirror damascened with tomb at Soleb & in flowers and lotus [sic] buds made of the Schiff- Giorgini gold, copper and electrum (an alloy of collection. gold and silver, which existed in antiq - Left, Upper portion uity, but not anymore) at the base of its of a bronze stat - disk. The pummel of its handle — in the uette of Osiris with form of a bunch of flowers, maybe made traces of gilding; in of ivory — is missing, as are the two the same University of Pisa collection. gems of the floral decoration. It goes University of Pisa photos without saying that the round disk was shined so as to reflect the image of the owner. Another highlight is a block of
rose-colored sandstone with a portrait Quartzite fragments of a life-size statue of in relief of Amenhotep III, found during Amenhotep III, excavated at his temple dur - the 1960/61 excavations in a chapel ing Schiff-Gioganni’s first season at Soleb in near the temple, dedicated by the phar- 1956. The torso fragment from the same aoh to the god Amen. The cartouche in statue is seen on p. 41. University of Pisa photo front of his blue crown is of his name. A magnificently carved life-size diorite torso of Amenhotep III is from the tem - ple itself. “Still others from Soleb are: Amenhotep III’s large commemorative glazed-stone scarab, found in one of Soleb’s tombs. The text, in hieroglyphics on its flat side, commemorates the cap - ture of 102 lions during the first ten years of the pharaoh’s reign. Probably a gift from him to the tomb’s owner, a digni - tary, it was a kind of medal for the good service rendered. The tombs here all be - long to priests or court officials sent
45 Kmt Cleopatra. “In 2012,” Dr . Silvano told me, “I published an article about the cranium of Pisa’s mum my. Until then the mummy’s whereabouts had been a mys - tery. The story goes: Due to a storm at sea, the mummy was in such bad con di - tion on its arrival in Livorno [Leghorn] that, as you can see, it’s only a skeleton now. Rosellini decided to donate it to Paolo Savi, the then-director of Pisa’s Natural History Museum at Cal ci, where- as its coffin proceeded with the other ten undamaged coffins and their mummies to Florence, where this one was sent to
A gilded bronze mirror, damascened with gold, copper & electrum, found in a tomb at Soleb by Schiff-Giorgini. Its handle is missing. University of Pisa photo there to build Soleb’s great temple. than gold then, so proof that the tomb “During his reign a series of belonged to an important dignitary, may- over 200 such commemorative scarabs be even a vizier of Nubia. The ring was have been found in all parts of Amen - donated to the University in 1997 by hotep III’s empire, from Syria to Nubia. Clément Robichon, who had been the All their texts extol the pharaoh’s ac - architect of the Schiff-Giorgini excava - 2 An Egyptianizing display case, once the complishments. The text of over 120 of tions in Sudan.” pro perty of Ippolito Rosellni’s uncle, Gae- these is like ours and records the large In this first room devoted to the tano, who was a member of the Franco- number of lions he killed. Schiff-Giorgini collection — on long- Tuscan expediton to Egypt. It was donat- “There also is a silver stirrup- term loan from the Archeology Museum ed to the University of Pisa Museum by shaped ring from a tomb in Soleb. It’s in Florence — is a coffin, one of the elev- his granddaughter, Laura Birga, in 1962. It contains some 100 objects collected in our only piece of jewelry from Soleb en brought back to Italy by Ippolito Ro- Egypt by Gaetano. University of Pisa photo made of silver. Silver was more precious sellini from Luxor, on the merchant ship Kmt 46 the storerooms and forgotten. Marilina Betrò, professor of Egyptology in Pisa, uncovered — thanks to documents in an archive in Prague — that Pisa’s mummy/ skeleton, Kenamen, a ‘milk brother’ of Amenhotep II, had been the occupant of Florence’s damaged cof fin. Now they are finally together again.” 3
The collection’s second room houses the Picozzi collection, the Benvenuti do - nation (to the right of the entrance door), the ostraca (nine ostracca and eleven camel bones are on display in a vitrine across from the Picozzi artifacts, the rest conserved in nearby metal file-cases) and miscellaneous donations. All the Pi - cozzi artifacts brought back from Egypt by Gaetano Rosellini are on display in a large cabinet he had made-to-order “Eg- yptian style” for his salon. It has mov - able shelves which can be pulled out and is topped by an “obelisk,” also with shelves. “Some of these artifacts were probably gifts; others he probably found or bought as souvenirs,” Flora Silvano told me. “In his diary Gaetano does not mention them.” On display in the “obe- lisk.” one per shelf, are seven jars of sand from different places in Egypt and Nubia. Rosellini’s ancient Eg yptian arti - facts include jewelry, amulets and bronze statuettes of gods, but are all of unknown provenance. He also col lected contem - porary Nubian jewelry and clothes, as well as a papyrus roll with a text of ma- gic formulas in Ethiopian, for warding off disease, demons and the evil eye, to name only a few. “As for our ostraca,” said Dr. Silvano, “we bought ours a short time before the University of Cologne bought Star of the University of Pisa Museum’s Egyp- theirs from the same antiquarian in Cai- tian collection is this Ro- ro. We had decided together to divide man-period blue-glass goblet the collection in two exact halves so with gilded & enameled decora - Cologne has some 1,500, too.” tion, found in 1970 in a tomb at In the other display cases are Sedeinga, smashed into 8O pieces; restored, it is one of a miscellaneous finds from the University- pair, the other in the museum at sponsored excavations and private dona - Khar- toum. University of Pisa photo tions. “Examples from our excavations,” continued Silvano, “include, from near the Temple of Thutmose IV at Gurna- Thebes, where we excavated in 1973, a blue-faience bowl, a deben for a scale, two small pieces of terracotta painted 47 Kmt tombs at Deir el Medina (one belonged to the sculptor Ken, the other to Nefer - enmaat, a medical doctor; part of a black- granite coffin dating to the Seventh Dy - nasty; a grey-granite relief de picting Seti I; two painted-limestone ste lae; the head of a woman wearing a wig and water-lily flower; and a fragment of a statue. Waiting the opening of a mu - seum in Pisa devoted to archaeology, they presently are in storage. Notes 1.That today Gaetano Rosellini’s drawings belong to the University of Pisa’s Library, given by Gaetano himself, was confirmed by Dr. Silvano. Other fonts with additional infor - Roman-period ceramic & bone os - mation were brought to my attention by Dr. traca written in demotic & found at Christian Orsenigo. He told me of an exhibi - Oxyrhynchus. University of Pisa photo tion curated by Prof. Betrò called “Ip polito Rosellini and the Dawn of Egyptology. Origi - yellow and blue, and a two-foot ed pot- Richard Bussmann, professor of Egyp - nal Drawings and Manuscripts of the Franco- support for cooking. From Gurna- Thebes, tology at the University of Cologne — at Tuscan Expedition from the Biblioteca Uni- but from the Tomb of Nebneteru, a vizier, Zawyet Sultan. versitaria of Pisa.” It was held in 2010, first at are some of his funerary band ages with As for private donations, they the Cairo Egyptian Museum and then, to - texts from the Book of the Dead. Fifty- include a sandstone stela datable to the gether with artifacts from both Florence’s eight amphora stamps, acquired in 1996 Ptolemaic period, showing a pharaoh Egyptian collection and Pisa University’s col - in Medinet Madi, were donated to the making a donation to Thoth; several lection, in Pisa’s Palazzo Blu, a venue used collection in 1997 by Prof . Donato Mor- bronze statuettes of deities; two “eyes,” mostly for temporary exhibitions, although it elli. Other artifacts include two ear rings which must have been used to embellish houses a permanent art-collection as well. and a statuette of Nefertum, discov ered a wooden coffin; and, in 1991, six fa- 2. Other collaborators at the Schiff-Giorgini excavations were Dutch Egyptologist Jacob- in Medinet Madi in 1999, and a green- ceted-faience beads, once probably part us Johannes Janssen (1922-2011), who spe - stone heart scarab with no inscrip tion of a necklace. Each bead is decorated cialized in hieratic texts; and Jean Leclant from the Tomb of Bakeneref in Sakkara. with the head of Bes on one facet and an (1920-2011), a renowned French archeolo - This scarab was found in 1996 in the ugiat on another. “In 2000,” Dr. Sil - gist and author. chest cavity of the mummy of Merneith, vano told me “we received part of a 3. The University’s website