Światowit • LVII • 2018 Andrzej Niwiński Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw
[email protected] TRAVELS OF COUNT MIChał TYSZKIEWICZ TO AFRICA, HIS EXCAVATIONS IN 1861–1862, AND THE ORIGIN OF HIS COLLECTION OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES1 Abstract Count Michał Tyszkiewicz (1828–1897) was one of and Moscow. The majority of the objects originated the most renowned collectors of the ancient classical art from excavations conducted by the count, particularly th at the end of the 19 century. His interest in archaeology in Thebes (Luxor area), by virtue of an official licence and ancient art was developed during his travel through granted to him exceptionally by Mohamed Said Pasha – Egypt in 1861. His Journal of the Travel to Egypt and the then head of the Egyptian state. The present article Nubia, fortunately found in 1992 in Poznań, recounts this journey. From Egypt, Michał Tyszkiewicz brought discusses the circumstances of granting of this permission a collection of antiquities, estimated to have comprised in the period when a strict state monopoly was imposed c. 800 objects; today, over a half of them can be found on archaeological investigations and presents the course in museums in Paris (Louvre), Warsaw, Vilnius, Kaunas, of the excavations along with their results. Keywords: Michał Tyszkiewicz, Egypt, Nubia, excavations, collection Count Michał Tyszkiewicz has secured himself only after 1863, when the count moved from Lithuania a place in the hall of fame in the history of art as one to Paris, and later to Naples and Rome.3 Before 1870, of the greatest and most renowned collectors of classical, he excavated several archaeological sites in Italy and was especially Roman, antiquities.