Curator’s Choice: The Egyptian Collection of the Oriental Institute, Chicago

The Egyptian collection of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is among the best in North America. It comprises an astonishing 40,000 objects from Egypt (including approximately 11,000 from Egyptian Nubia). Emily Teeter, curator in charge of planning and installing the new Joseph and Mary Grimshaw Egyptian Gallery,takes us on a guided tour through the history and superb highlights of the collection.

In the years following the founding of the University of Chicago in 1894, the collection consisted of plaster casts and a few small objects. That same year, young James Henry Breasted was hired by the University as the first professor of Egyptology. Later that year, Breasted and his wife honeymooned in Egypt. It was his first visit to the Nile Valley and, according to his wife’s diary, he was mightily distracted by his desire to copy inscriptions.

A further distraction was $500 given to him by the president of the University who instructed Breasted to buy artefacts for their fledgling museum, but to ‘rely chiefly on the generosity of excavators, and to draw on the appropriation only as a last result.’ As Breasted’s son later wrote, ‘by wheedling material from excavators and additional monies from people of means, he created the nucleus of a modest though representative collection.’ (C. Breasted, Pioneer to the Past (New York, 1948), p. 66.) Among his hundreds of acquisitions were molds, ushabtis, mummified animals, mud bricks stamped with the names of Ramesside kings, and four human mummies that were stored under the honeymooner’s bed.

Statue of a harpist from the tomb of Ny-kau-inpu at Giza, from a group of twenty-five statues was purchased by Breasted in 1919.
Dynasty 5, ca. 2445 B.C., OIM 10642, H: 8 1/8 in

The University further added to the collection by subscribing to the Egypt Exploration Fund (and later the British School of Archaeology in Egypt) which, in return for an annual fee, sent a portion of their share of the divisions of finds to Chicago as well as to many other cities. The quality - and quantity - of the objects received from the excavations is still startling, and some of the most important pieces of the collection date to this sponsorship. By 1896, the growing collections were moved into galleries in the new Haskell Museum at the University of Chicago.

The First World War interrupted the excavations of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, and the steady stream of antiquities tapered off. Encouraged by Breasted’s skill and enthusiasm, trustees of the University of Chicago granted monies specifically for purchasing additional artefacts for the museum. In 1919, Breasted and several colleagues embarked on a grand tour of the Near East making significant purchases and selecting sites for excavation by the newly-founded Oriental Institute. The antiquities market in Egypt was flooded with desirable artefacts because the war had interrupted the thenlegal trade.

As Breasted wrote, ‘…the present opportunity to secure more such material will never return again, and that it would be very wise to seize the opportunity while it is still ours. The situation is this… Most of them [antiquities dealers]… are disposing of what they still have on hand at practically pre-war prices;…There is therefore a body of material here in Cairo, which will never be available again…’ His letter describes visiting the home of noted dealer Maurice Nahman who ‘lives in a palatial house with a huge drawing room as big as a church, where he exhibits his immense collection.’ (Both quotations from a letter from J.H. Breasted to C. Hutchinson, December 4, 1919, used with the permission of the Oriental Institute.)

Breasted had developed exquisite taste, and some of the major treasures of the collection were acquired during this trip. However, with changing laws and financial situations, the Oriental Institute generally ceased purchasing artefacts, and very few have been added to the collection by that means since the mid-1930s.

Other objects came to Chicago through the archaeological work of the Oriental Institute. From 1926 to 1933, a team directed by Uvo Hölscher excavated the temple precinct at Medinet Habu, and over 8000 objects were granted to Chicago in the final division. They represent an incredible range of materials, including important archaeological study materials such as glass fragments, inlays, and tools, a large collection of bronzes and clay figurines, statues and stelae, and a 17’3"-tall statue of king Tutankhamun. The latter was granted to the University of Chicago because it was one of a pair. The material which dates from the 18th Dynasty to the 8th century A.D., gives a comprehensive view of daily life, cult, and the administrative function of the whole precinct over a long time period.

Stele of Djed-khonsu-iw-es-ankh offering to ReHorakhty from the Ramesseum excavations of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1897
Dynasty 22, ca. 946 B.C.., OIM 1351, H: 9 3/4 in

The Egyptian collection grew steadily in the 1920s and 30s, as did the Oriental Institute’s other holdings from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Palestine. In 1930, a new building was constructed expressly for the Institute and its museum. In 1996, the museum temporarily closed its five galleries to install climate control systems.

This gave the opportunity for the complete reorganization and rethinking of the exhibits. The new Egyptian gallery, named for Joseph and Mary Grimshaw, opened in 1999. The approximately 4000 square feet space is divided into three sections: an introductory area that presents the most essential aspects of Egyptian culture - chronology, writing, and kingship. The centre of the hall is devoted to funerary artefacts, and the last section deals with life including artists and their methods, music, clothing, magic and medicine, and building techniques.

A significant number of objects in the new installation had never before been exhibited, including a child’s tunic dated to the middle of the 18th Dynasty, Middle and New Kingdom reliefs from Abydos, leather and rush sandals from the Roman and Byzantine eras, animal mummies, a Roman-era mummy of a young boy, a false door of the workman Ny-sw-redi (probably from Giza), and a wooden harp from the Lord Carnarvon excavations in Luxor. The renovated gallery continues to instruct and entertain students and the general public alike, and to bring the rich history and culture of Egypt to life.

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