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>> Kathy Hart: Good afternoon, everybody.
My name is Kathy Hart.
I am the associate director and the Barbara C.
and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Curator of Academic Programming.
And I just wanted to give everybody a reminder
if they have a cell phone to turn it off now.
Okay. This afternoon it is my great pleasure
to introduce Christine Lilyquist.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's former head of the Department
of Egyptian Art, and Lyla Atchison Wallace Research
Curator in Egyptology, and recent advisor,
and also an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Visiting Scholar
at the Hood Museum of Art.
Dr. Lilyquist curated the current exhibition that's
on view upstairs of the Hood's Egyptian antiquities,
the majority of which had never been
on view prior to this installation.
We have used them for teaching,
but we just hadn't had them on view.
And she served as a wonderful advisor to us on this project,
on not only the Mounty and conservation of these objects,
but also the scholarship.
And for several years, I think it's been about five
or six years [laughs] now she's been working
on cataloging the collection and applying her great knowledge
of this area to looking at it as a whole, and all its aspects
as you will see when she gives her lecture.
And she hopes to finish this coming winter the cataloging
project after she and her husband relocate to Vermont.
So welcome, welcome to Vermont.
Dr. Lilyquist final project at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art is a website publication of an excavation
under taken 100 years ago, when the Earl of Carnarvon
and the Metropolitan Museum had adjoining excavations at Thebes.
Her wish was -- we wish her very well
on her work for this project.
Because I know it's a -- it's been a long time in the making.
This is the second lecture she's given
on Dartmouth's Egyptian collection.
The previous one focused on the objects
and for this lecture she turns
to the creation of the collection.
The title of today's lectures is, Causing Their Names to Live,
Collectors, Scholars, Dealers, and the Hood's Egyptian Objects.
Welcome, Christine.
>> Christine Lilyquist: Thank you.
[Applause] I'm grateful again [background noise] to the Hood
for the opportunity to have researched these objects.
It's always a great pleasure to find new things
and to learn about them.
And since so many of the things here are
without provenance I ended up spending quite a bit
of time trying to find out how they had come into the Hood.
What year?
From where?
Because sometimes that helps us determine the ancient location
of the object, as well as the time period or the context
that it might have come out of.
So there's another reason actually to look at provenance
and history of objects and that is, that one of the ways
that the ancient Egyptians obtained mortality was
through preserving their names on monuments or speaking them
and this evening I want to call attention to those collectors,
scholars, and ordinary folk who have had a role
in keeping interest in Egypt alive.
And we will speak of some of their names tonight,
as we learn how they [cough in background] came to own
or study the objects which we now have here.
Some people own an Egyptian object out of curiosity.
In the 19th century from the time of Napoleon
about 1800 the lure of the exotic brought Europeans,
British, and Americans to an Egypt
that was remarkably preserved from ancient times.
This is a watercolor of David Roberts around 1820
in the Valley of the Kings.
There is some openings there, but very little else
to tell you what really lay behind that.
There was an interest in natural world at that time
in the early 19th century and foreign peoples and places.
We know it from the Fleming Museum in Saint Johnsbury,
or this more grand scale cabinet of curiosities
in Oxford the Pit Rivers Museum.
You may remember from the first lecture -- oops -- this one --
that I pointed out two small fragments here on the left.
One of them actually we found fits in a royal tomb
of about 1,200 B.C. These were certainly picked
up as curiosities by the mineralogist Frederick Hall
who was a renowned scientist [background noise] who taught
at Dartmouth and elsewhere.
He built a vast mineralogical collection
and included specimens from Europe
in his mineralogy pursuits,
but he also collected these two small fragments as curiosities.
This foot in the upper left is also an example of a curiosity.
Its label says where and when.
It was carefully collected, 1867 and themes.
It came to Dartmouth from the beloved Dartmouth Associate
Librarian Harold Rug who's there on the right.
He was a 1906 Dartmouth Phi Beta Kappa,
and you can see his graduation photo on the left.
Rug's main interest was Vermontiana, but he also loved
to travel and he did go to the near east.
We don't really know where he picked up his foot, but are sure
that it was -- he acquired it because it was reference
to the ancient culture of the Nile.
This stick pin on the left,
which has a little scarab attached,
it belonged to Ernest Fox Nichols,
president of Dartmouth from 1909 to 1916.
It's another such curiosity.
Nichols was a distinguished scientist who took time
to instigate the winter carnival and the alumni council.
Here you see him wearing the stickpin
in his official portrait.
Right there.
And that's the detail.
I'm sorry to say that the scarab is not ancient,
but that's almost beside the point, isn't it?
With these small objects of curiosity.
It could have been made at Guarana by a villager
who was promoting an interest in Egypt too,
then sold to a tourist and eventually taken to Britain,
or America, or Europe as a talisman.
Ms. E. M. Hutton of Redding,
England was a bit more lucky with her purchase.
She bought a rare 19 --
18th dynasty shroud, which is up here.
Here in Dartmouth.
Quite likely on a trip to Egypt.
She owned other bits of textiles that make you think
that she just was collecting what she could from dealers.
Parts of the shroud are purchased --
this part down here -- oops -- this part here was purchased
by the Burleau Museum in 1912.
As a textile, it may have been in pieces
when local people found it.
So the dealer sold parts of it as he could.
Many of provenance antiquities have been split
up like this providing puzzles for archaeologists
like me to work on later.
Now, a predecessor of mine
at the Metropolitan Museum is this man up here.
Very famous Egyptologist named William C. Haze.
At one point Dartmouth asked him to date that little fragment
that we just saw in the last slide from the shroud of Mahu.
He's here on a trip to Fili in 1954 with other Egyptologists.
Most remarkably, Haze assigned Mahu's shroud
to the Talemain [assumed spelling] period that is
about 300 B.C. But the young man in the upper right,
Edward L. B. Terrace, Dartmouth '57, correctly wrote
from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 1960
that the shroud was really dynasty 18.
More than a 1,000 years earlier than Haze had stated.
And the man at the bottom Dartmouth class of '30
and later renowned Egyptologist at Brown University,
followed up Terrace to say yes, Terrace is right.
The shroud is about 1450 B.C. Now Parker is in the photo below
around 1946 with his family at Chicago House Luxor,
which was the oriental institute center for epigraphic work
out of the University of Chicago.
It was established through the magnificence
of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. We will hear more of Parker
and of Rockefeller's in a bit.
Terrace himself, the man in the upper right,
became an eminent art historian of Egypt, the near East
and the classical world.
To him, he said later, Dartmouth opened life's door.
Pointing out the role that education plays
in keeping cultures alive.
Now rather than a curio here, or a curio there, another type
of collecting is the cast a wide net approached.
A whole suite of things bought at one time
that shows a more substantial commitment
and that's what I think happened
with the Hitchcock things that are here.
That's Hiram Hitchcock on the left
and a man named Chesno on the right.
Hiram Hitchcock and his wife, after their beloved son died
around 1867 decided to take a trip to the Mediterranean.
He had intended to come to Dartmouth,
but actually got sidetracked
and built a hotel business in New York instead.
And it was there that he met the man on the right,
the [cough in background] well should I say rogue entrepreneur
Luigi Palm di Cesnola.
Cesnola was an Italian immigrant who fought in our civil war
and thereafter gave himself the title of general [laughter]
and managed, not with any particular qualifications,
to become the American Council in Cyprus,
after the end of the civil war.
The Hitchcock's, who --
Hitchcock himself he was well along his business career set
sale for the Mediterranean 1867 with a plan to visit Cesnola
in Cyprus while abroad.
This is -- in back it might be a little bit out of focus
of the Ottoman Empire just to reminds you that the part --
when we're talking about Egypt
in the 19th century it was really as part
of this larger whole Ottoman Empire.
This is Cyprus right here
where Cesnola was the American Council, and typically travelers
at that time would --
could cross the Atlantic in the steamer, get a second boat here
on the Mediterranean, and would land
at Alexandria which is right here.
This is Cairo and then way up here is going to be Luxor.
So Hitchcock's plan was to sale across -- they went to Italy.
They went to Cyprus, to Egypt
and then they were along the coast of here, as well.
Before that -- before they landed on Cyprus
to visit Cesnola they did stop in Egypt
and like Herman Melville, 10 years earlier,
they visited Alexandria, Cairo and no doubt the pyramids.
We know this from letters here at Dartmouth.
Now Alexandria in 1867 was a sweet pea port.
Although Egypt was opening to Europeans the Suez Canal was
about finished and Opera House would be opened in Cairo
for which Verde wrote Ieta.
Melville wonderfully describes his impressions during eight
days in Egypt.
The bustle of Cairo, the glittering mosques, splendor
and squalor he writes, gloom and gaiety.
Too much light and no defense against it.
The antiquity of Egypt stamped upon individuals.
And at the Sphinx after seeing the pyramid all other
architecture seems but pastry.
There is no evidence of Hitchcock as a collector.
And I imagine considering all the records that we have
that he bought the Egyptian objects in one fail swoop as he
like Melville was only in Egypt briefly.
A label on this block on the left for instance, says it came
from Phoebes, but that's 400 miles south of Cairo.
It could have been quite likely
in a Careen dealer shop ready at hand for tourists.
In fact, the block has a very difficult inscription
of which there's a detail on the right.
And Dartmouth at one point asked John Wilson,
who's standing here, in the oriental institute where he --
well he was director even of it at one point.
Again, signaling the role that scholars play in keeping
or making the past alive [background noise].
But now we approach a collector who was serious about art
with a capital A. This magnificent head
of a deity was given by Nelson Rockefeller's family in 1999.
[cough in background] Nelson was Dartmouth's 1930 [cough
in background] up there in -- his left his graduation photo.
And when the sculpture was given the Hood understood
that Mr. Rockefeller had acquired it on a trip
to Egypt in the early 1930's.
Nelson was the son of John D. Jr.,
and thanks to the Rockefeller family archives, I have learned
that indeed Nelson did and his bride embark
on a yearlong honeymoon after [cough
in background] his graduation.
And the trip did include Egypt.
Here they are in Japan.
I'm told. I wasn't aware there were waterfalls there,
but that's what the label says.
[Laughter] further, as the son of Abby Rockefeller
who as Nelson later had so much to do with the Museum
of Modern art, Nelson had grown up with art.
At the age of seven he had written in a composition book,
"I would like to have the Sistine Madonna
in my dining room [laughter].
I would not sell it for all the money in the world,
or give it to a museum.
It is one of the most wonderful paintings Raphael painted."
Of course we can sense the influence of his mother here,
but while at Dartmouth Carpenter Hall was opened
and Nelson did focus on art.
One professor wrote, "Nelson was very interested in pyramids."
And went on from there.
Alas, but perhaps more interestingly as I learned
from the Rockefeller archives the peace
that sculpture had was not acquired by Nelson,
but by his maternal grandfather and namesake,
Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich on the right.
This document, which is a collection record,
that's in the archives of the Rockefeller family says
that it was the piece --
was purchased by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich when he went
up the Nile with Mr. Morgan, in consultation with Mr. Lithgow
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The collection of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller,
Jr. that would be Abby, gift to Nelson her son and then given
to Nelson's first wife Mary Clark Rockefeller
under separation when they divorced.
And it was from her that Dartmouth received the head
as a gift from her and her -- I think youngest son.
The collection record pointed me right away
to this man named Lithgow.
First of all, of course Mr. Morgan, up here,
which means J. P. Morgan --
Jay Pierpont Morgan and Mr. Lithgow was the founder
of the Egyptian Department at the Metropolitan Museum
where I have worked for many years.
Thanks to letters and a diary that I found in the museum
from Lithgow and his wife, we can say a good deal more
about the acquisition and modern history of this head.
[Cough in background] Nelson Aldrich was a very powerful
politician, whose career developed after the civil war.
From about 1870 to 1910 as the Senior U.S. Senator
from Rhode Island, and the head of the Senate Finance Committee.
He was referred to as the general manager of the nation.
[Cough in background] This was time when the west was opening
up and pressuring the eastern establishment fortunes,
as in sugars, steel and banks, were to be made.
American industries were developing.
The question of bimedalism was being hashed out, that is,
should the currency be based on gold, as the east wanted,
or could it have equal value to silver, as the west wanted.
As a businessperson, Aldrich believed
in an economic constituency and following Alexander Hamilton
in society as an economic hierarchy.
There was a populace movement in those years
with William Jennings Brian and a progressive party.
The Occupy Wall Street movement of the day,
but business interest wanted none of it.
According to a biography
of Aldrich he was indeed a hard working conscientious elected
official, whose values of efficiency relied
on survival of the fittest.
He protected American factories and farms
by creating an extensive system of tariffs,
but these tariffs also drove domestic prices high.
Following the panic of 1907 when J. Pierpont Morgan bailed
out the country, as he had in 1895, Aldrich went to Europe
to research banking systems
to see how things might be better done,
than they were being done in America.
Upon his return he proposed what would become eventually the
Federal Reserve Board.
When World War I broke out he told one of his daughters
that war will last at least three years
and the U.S. can't help but be drawn into it.
When asked why, he said, "Because I have been in Germany
and I know her financial condition."
What with all that, Mr. Aldrich liked art and went to Europe
as often as he could to study and purchase whatever he could.
And naturally through business interest, as well as the love
of art, he became friends
with an even more passionate collector, J. Pierpont Morgan.
The real titan of banking.
The two were of similar age.
Coming to maturity after the civil war.
Morgan was educated in Europe and at Harvard, however,
spoke French and German.
And was [background noise] building a really magnificent
collection of art in London.
In fact, it was Aldrich's sponsorship of a bill
to allow fine art into the United States without tax,
that encouraged Morgan eventually
to ship his collection to the United States
for the eventual benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Aldrich bill in fact greatly supported the establishment
of major museums in this country.
Now in 1901 -- here's Mr. Aldrich and his wife
and their eight children.
This daughter is Abby.
In 1901 she had married John D. Rockefeller's only son.
Thus the Aldrich and Rockefeller families were joined.
Things weren't all rosy, however,
in 1901 as that was the year
that Ida Tarbell published her critique
of the Standard Oil Company, and it called the history
of the Standard Oil Company
in the 1914 there would be the Ludlow massacre [cough
in background].
By 1913 both Morgan and Aldrich were disappointed
and disillusioned about the way things were going.
What with efforts to redo the monetary commission bill
that Aldrich had guided they and Rockefeller Sr.,
had wanted Wall Street to control currency,
but Democrats had gotten Congress in 1912
so some governmental oversight was to be included in the bill.
It was then in 1913 that Morgan invited Aldrich and his family
to sail to Europe in a steamer.
Across the Mediterranean then in a yacht, that Mr. Morgan owned,
and then sail up the Nile in a dihobia [assumed spelling]
or river boat, which Mr. Morgan also owned.
Mr. Morgan had been going to Egypt for several years
in the company
of the Metropolitan Museum's curator Alfred Albert Lithgow,
the man mentioned in the collection record.
Two daughters and Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich were on that trip.
Now, Mr. Morgan before 1913 he had developed a great love
of Egypt over the years.
Such a contrast really from his London home
at Princess Gate filled
with beautiful European [cough in background] art.
Here are photos from his 1912 trip on a Nile dihobia there
up near Aswan here, on a donkey riding
to the tombs in the desert.
I mean, obviously there are no cars then and if you wanted
to travel in Egypt it was by donkey or by riverboat.
And then here the party is inspecting a temple
in upper Egypt.
That I believe this is Mr. Morgan here.
[Cough in background] Also 200 miles out into the desert
from Luxor at the Cargo Oasis
where the Metropolitan Museum was excavating it had one its
sites there for Roman and early Christian things.
He loved going to that place and at this photo the upper left
with his traveling companions they formed what they called the
Harvard Club of Cargo [laughter].
Left to right you see old boys Herbert Winlock,
the Metropolitan's brilliant archaeologist
who excavated a beer jar
that Horst Dornbush will probably mention next Tuesday
in his event about Egyptian beer.
Morgan's doctor, John Kennycut and then Morgan.
Bishop Lawrence [background noise], John Cadwalider,
and the Mets curator Albert Lithgow.
Asked on that trip where he liked
to live best Mr. Morgan said, "New York, London, Rome,
Caroga" and in that order.
Other notable personalities in Egypt at that time
in 1912 were here in the lower right Howard Carter -- oops --
right here -- and the Earl of Carnarvon.
The two of them would go on to find [inaudible] tomb.
The Earl's home was High Clear Castle,
which some of you might know as the scene
of the currently popular [inaudible] Abbey series.
Now thanks to Mr. Morgan [cough
in background] the Metropolitan received this magnificent dig
house at Luxor really quite glacial.
This is the interior.
It's still standing, but it's not in such fine repair.
Today the Metropolitan gave up its excavations in 1948,
but it was finished -- the building was finished in 1912
and it was next year the 13
that Morgan especially wanted Aldrich to see this.
I show this because it illustrates the role
that patronage has in scholarship.
The Egyptian department
at the Metropolitan would never have developed
without the support of major benefactors.
The first one was Mr. Morgan and after
that it was Edward Harkness.
There have been others since.
So patronage is another way that the name of Egypt is kept alive.
Now the trip that the Aldrich's made the next year as it turned
out would be Mr. Morgan's last,
as he died on the return trip in Rome.
This photo was taken in Spain on the trip out.
Mr. Aldrich is here in the background.
I would say looking with some concern at Mr. Morgan
because it was already known that he was not feeling well,
but he had also -- Mr. Morgan had just been --
had just finished being grilled in a Senate --
in Senate hearings led by Sam Untermeyer
about the role Morgan had played
in various financial transactions.
According to the documents in the Mets Egyptian Department,
chronically in their trip the Aldrich party consisted
of Senator and Mrs. Aldrich and the two daughters.
She was actually the mother of six --
of five of her six children by then.
One of whom was Nelson.
In Cairo, which is where the top two photos were taken,
they stayed at Shepherd's for a few days
and these are photos taken on the street
in front of Shepherd's.
I don't know if this is clear for you,
but I'm hoping [cough in background].
This is Shepherd's up in here.
There are other major hotels around here and banks
and then this is the museum.
This is the square, which is now called square --
liberty square -- let's say in Arabic.
And that's where the revolution a year ago began.
The Nile is right here.
So travelers would arrive from Alexandria by rail --
railroad is up -- stations up here somewhere.
They would settle in here, and typically right
around here would be dealer stores, as well as banks.
There's one in this photo right here,
which could have been the one
where the Hood head was purchased.
Because as it turned out the party could only be
in the major cities of Cairo and Luxor before Mr. Morgan had
to return to go back to -- he hoped to America.
And I think it's most likely it happened at the beginning
of the trip when they were still a little bit more at ease
that it would have been in Cairo.
The opera is also [cough in background] the --
in this district up here.
Eventually the head went home.
This is a photo from the Rockefeller collection record --
archive again.
This, I'm sorry to say, this doesn't really show very well,
but it is this same red marble base.
The base itself indicates a certain aesthetic.
Somebody dealing with art with a capital A ,
nd also a certain period of collecting.
Today our sensibility is different and we prefer to just
to focus on the ancient object
without this decorative item enhancing it.
So it went back to Mr. Aldrich's house, probably the one
on Naragat's [assumed spelling] Bay, and it probably
as a memento of the trip because Mr. Aldrich did collect widely,
but this is the only Egyptian thing we know that he had.
Certainly Aldrich owed the ownership of this head
to his friendship with Mr. Morgan
and Morgan's debt was to Lithgow.
They in fact were quite close.
Aldrich died two years later.
The head went to Abby and it was displayed
in the Rockefeller home until it was given to Dartmouth in 1999.
In 1940's we switch back again to the curiosities --
that mentality, but kind of situation of acquisition.
This mummified fish in the upper left came to Dartmouth
from two dealer brothers in Alexandria.
You see on the right Dartmouth President Earnest Hopkins,
Dartmouth class of 1901 the donor of the fish.
And with the map here you can see Alexandria way up here
at the base of this delta which is farmland.
It's way up river is Luxor -- this is a cut out of that map
and over here is the detail that shows this long string
of smaller towns around Alexandria.
The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great
at the western tip of the delta.
And faced the Mediterranean.
It was known always as a city that looked to the sea.
By 1940 -- mid 40's -- actually 1944 one world war had passed
and second one was ending.
You can see Aleman here as the sight of a famous battle
of the second world war.
Egypt was under British rule, but this city
as always was international.
And to some degree used to the vagaries of life.
So this is a -- oops -- this is a photo
of Alexandria at that time.
And we start with this letter up here, which was written
from the Concoleal with --
which turns out is the name of the shop, to the president.
Board of Regents Dartmouth College 1944 --
I mean, I think it's amazing
that they found Dartmouth's address
and addressed themselves to the president.
In the next letter on the right --
well, in the first letter actually they asked whether
Dartmouth could be interested in purchasing an embalmed fish.
Of which there was a limited number.
A reply was requested by return mail.
By the following April President Hopkins had offered personally
to pay $25.00 for the fish.
[Laughter] And the Antiwat brothers, one of who --
whom signs his name here wrote that it would soon be shipped.
After giving some possibly true information
about provenance they continued in the letter,
"Are you interested in an embalmed hox?"
[Laughter] "We have some specimens that are bandaged
in a most artistic way."
The main Antiwat shop was here in the Rufuad,
although there was a bizarre like outpost in --
called the Fleet Club, where service men gathered.
The Rufuad again, you might not be able to read this,
but it's this major street in here.
This is the big harbor.
There's the second one.
The Rufuad was the place that E.M. Forester had met Kufafi,
and Lawrence Derail lived with Eve Cohen in the 1940's.
The woman after whom Derail was to pattern Justine
in the Alexander Quartet.
Derail was working for the British information Office,
which I think is -- its right here.
And this is Derail with his staff at that time.
So there was a mixture of people in Alexandria.
It was a different kind of community than Cairo.
The Anitwats incidentally,
in typical Alexandrian character were Syrian Christian
and had a minor role in the acquisition
of the Nagahamata Codices for any of those who you know
about the history of early Christianity.
They to me point out to the role that dealers have or can have
in keeping culture alive.
As for Hopkins, the Dartmouth president who personally put
up $25.00 to buy the fish, he was addressed
by Governor Nelson Rockefeller
when the Hopkins Center was opened in 1962.
I came to Dartmouth because of you.
So many wheels, so many connections.
Turning again to collecting Egyptian art with a capital A,
we come to this wonderful head of a lioness goddess Sexmet
and it's donor in the lower right, Ray Winfield Smith.
Mr. Smith was Dartmouth 1918 and a classmate of Harvey Hood,
for whom this museum is named.
Smith was a veritable dynamo of energy and accomplishment.
Everything from receiving a purple heart in World War I
to being economic and military advisor to the government
after World War II, a Sinclair oil man, pilot, patentee
and field directional drilling and pioneer in cost accounting.
He was also an attache to the Olympic games of 1928.
He was the head of the track team here.
And he was fluent in six languages.
Like Morgan Smith found art and culture in Europe enticing,
although he went to Europe not for business interest as Morgan,
but because of war -- First World War.
From letters and [inaudible] two Dartmouth classmates
in 1918 received that Smith immersed himself
in culture abroad.
Laying a foundation for later business in governmental roles,
but he also did unusual things
by becoming a collector of ancient glass.
He participated in a pioneering project
at Burhaven National Laboratories
to provenance ancient glass through lead isotopes.
And as director the American Research Center in Egypt,
an administrative post, during the 1960's he got interested
in using computers to solve a giant jigsaw puzzle at Carnac.
We're here in the temple of a moon at Carnac.
This is a large pile on filled with small blocks.
This is obviously built later --
let's say about 100 years later --
with blocks that had been put inside to be used as fill.
These blocks were from temples of Akhenaton,
who is often referred to as the Father of Monotheism.
They had been walled up in this huge pile
on when Akhenaton's reign was termed a heresy.
By photographing and documenting these blocks and getting IBM --
that would have been about 1967
or 8 to computerize the records the team turned up evidence
that Akhenaton's wife, Nefertiti was more than a beautiful woman.
She had a major role in the sun cult that Akhenaton promulgated,
and by means of evidence
that Smith discovered she is now thought by many
to have actually ruled as Pharaoh.
Not bad for an amateur -- Smith that is.
As for the [inaudible] head, a major temple
of the goddess was next door to Carnac at Luxor.
That's this side and you can see various statues
of the goddess here that have been excavated
and placed upright so that you can see amongst the walls
that were once much higher of course,
you can see some of these statutes.
I suggest that Smith bought the head while working
with the Akhenaton temple project.
Like Aldrich he collected art widely,
but he did have a special interest in ancient art.
The final object I would like to trace of --
for which I would like to trace the history is this
[inaudible] Isis.
It's only about six of seven inches high.
And I actually gave it in memory of people who had owned it.
The first owner was this extraordinary woman
on the right, standing in the late 40's
with Egyptologist Bernard Bothmer here
and Alexander Piancov, a Russian Egyptologist in the center.
The woman in the plaid coat was born Winifred Shaunesee
in Salt Lake City.
The granddaughter of Joseph Smith's right hand man.
Wink, as she was called,
was raised with both privilege and eccentricity.
Her father was Catholic.
Her mother was a Spiritualist.
One of her mother's husbands was the sister
of the degregated Alista Wolfe.
Another husband built a cosmetics empire.
Winifred was sent to English boarding school at eight.
At 17 she ran off from there
and joined the empirical Russian ballet
and changed her name to Natasha Rambova.
[Cough in background] Within a few years of that she was
in Hollywood, where she designed these gorgeous costumes and sets
for the silent film actress and director Ala Nisimova.
Nisimova was the aunt
of the later writer, director Val Lutin.
That's Nisimova right here
and she introduced Rambova to Rudolph Valentino.
The two of them are on your right.
Rambova became Valentino's second wife,
but more than that her intelligence
and style are credited
with creating the persona of Valentino.
Alas, that phase of Rambo's life ended
and during the 30's she was married to a Spanish Count.
Initially holding a conservative view of the Spanish civil war,
her pollical thinking did change,
but in the end it was Franco
who helped her escape the country and that marriage.
While married to [inaudible] however she made her first trip
to Egypt and there she wrote, "I felt as if I had
at last returned home.
Returning to a place once loved after two long a time."
In the 1940's she read widely and amassed a formidable library
in various languages of which she was fluent.
She read in astrology, mythology, dream analysis,
and comparative religion above all.
By 1948 she got a grant from Paul
and Mary Mellon's Ballengen Foundation, which had been set
up to further studies related to Carl Eun's work.
Rambova's interest was cosmology.
The wisdom of the universe that lay behind organized religion.
And although that she recognized
that she had not been conventionally trained
as an Egyptologist, she nevertheless believed
that her iconological research was valid.
Penetrating regions that more pragmatically trained
Egyptologists were reticent to explore.
Through a second Ballengen grant.
She and the Russian Egyptologist Alexander Piancov that we saw
in that first photo -- she and Piancov recorded
and published text in royal tombs.
These text traced the king's journey
through the nether world -- that is after he leaves this life.
She was editor.
This is one of those royal tomb paintings on the ceiling
that shows the sun as it goes through the body
of the goddess -- the sky goddess.
During the night these are various deities or semi-deities
and text that the king would meet during his journey.
She was editor of this series
of about five very important volumes Ballengen published,
but she also wrote a chapter on the metaphysial interpretation
of what we call the mythological papyri.
In other words, she developed enough credible knowledge
to correspond with Richard Parker -- in the lower right.
We saw him early on when he's the one that said
that that little shroud of Mahu really --
that Terrace really was right.
He was a distinguished professor at Brown University,
and he was the specialist really
in Egyptian astronomy let's say --
whatever you want to call this --
these schemes that document the nether world.
He's here with one
of his volumes illustrating a photograph
from a rhamnoside star clock.
She was able to correspond with Parker
and she was highly interested partly --
she corresponded with him because she was
so interested in his zodiac.
Now I first heard of Rambova from this man.
He was my professor.
Donald P. Hanson, Dartmouth 1953.
Here he stands in front
of the Dartmouth Assyrian Reliefs holding a book
on the Assyrian reliefs
in the Metropolitan Museum [cough in background].
The book was written by --
of the Metropolitan's Relief was written
by this woman the eminent, great,
near Eastern scholar Edith Prada.
At Dartmouth, Hanson was a student
of the classist John Sterns, who's right here.
And together they wrote the guide of 1953
to the Assyrian Reliefs.
55 years later that is just a few years ago in 2007,
Professors Cohen and Kangus dedicated papers
from a symposium on the reliefs to Hanson.
It is while the young Dartmouth student was on a trip
to New York that Hanson met Prada.
She had dropped papers on a bus
and he helped her picked them up.
[Cough in background] Prada was the refugee from Austria.
She's the -- this is actually her home in -- outside of Yeno.
Whose first job had been in America
at the Ballengen Foundation and she knew Rambova,
and knew that Rambova wanted research help for the studies
that she Rambova was undertaking.
Hanson was beginning graduate studies at Harvard.
Prada introduced the two on the steps
of the 42nd Street Library.
He told me that and he said he eventually formed a close
relationship with this extraordinary woman,
Ms. Rambova.
In fact, I think his knowledge
of Egypt must have been developed in large part
because of Rambova's great involvement with the subject.
What kind of collectors were Rambova and Hanson.
She was interested in objects for what they could say
about Egyptian belief.
He, as a scholar and archaeologist,
was drawn further into esthetics.
The little green Isis that I illustrated was
in his office for many years.
I think at hand is a memory of Ms. Rambova.
Here is Hanson on the left
in the early 70's and his beloved Iraq.
The Reed Motifs
in the background are an architectural form that was used
since Samarian times [cough in background].
Actually until Saddam Hussein drained the marshes of the gulf.
Hanson was a brilliant archaeologist.
He's here with some of his workmen.
And a first rate teacher and it points -- I think he points --
his involvement points to the serendipitous nature
of connections that people form with antiquity.
So on this kind of whirlwind tour of the world
of collecting we have seen a variety of collectors,
ways that people approach objects whether it's as curio,
memento, high art, jigsaw puzzle
that could reveal new historical facts, souvenir,
all of these people have kept interest in Egypt alive.
So thank you.
Hope you found it interesting too.
[Applause] Questions?
Yeah. If there are any questions.
We do have [inaudible] with us.
Kathy?
>> Kathy Hart: So what's the most surprising [background
noise] [inaudible] in looking at this collection.
What are something that you came across [background noise]
that you didn't expect?
>> Christine Lilyquist: In this segment
of it I was really impressed how few people were involved.
How they knew each other, or that there were [cough
in background] names, or you know,
associations that kept turning up.
And I found it very interesting to learn --
I mean, I used it really as a chance
to [background noise] learn more about American history.
Morgan and Aldrich and things that, you know, we use --
I mean 1912 was when the Titanic went down.
The 1912 I know about as an archaeologist because I know
who was excavating where and what they were digging up,
[background noise] but I never connected it
with the other bigger events in the world.
And so for me that was --
it was a pleasure to be able to do that.
Yes.
>> From how far away were objects being brought
to Alexandria and Cairo?
[Inaudible] [background noise]
>> Christine Lilyquist: [Inaudible]
>> Provenance [inaudible].
>> Christine Lilyquist: Oh, it does entirely.
I mean, Mr. Hitchcock had about 150 objects and only four
of them have something written on the back
that says where they came from.
But, you know, I mean, it's extraordinary to me
that Melville would only spend eight days in Egypt.
He wrote wonderfully.
He was very impressed.
He loved it.
But he had only booked, or maybe only had time
for that much of a trip.
I think what nowadays we --
if you see an object that's with a provenance you can't assume
where it might have come from.
It could have definitely been purchased in Alexandria
and been come from far up river, because that's
where the tourist -- you know that everybody was going
to land there, or in Cairo where most people would
at least would go to see the pyramids.
Yeah.
>> [Inaudible] I loved the fish.
So I'd like to make sure I understood the beginning
of the fish story because it sounded
like these [inaudible] dealers in Alexandria did the equivalent
of cold call, is that right?
They just wrote randomly to [inaudible] --
>> Christine Lilyquist: As I say I --
it's really interesting to me that they knew to write
to Dartmouth College and they wrote precisely
to the president, the Board of Regents.
I mean, they must have seen some kind of [cough
in background] document that had those, you know,
that list -- that was 1944.
The mixed courts were in Alexandria.
There was a very cosmopolitan center.
I mean, there could have been somebody living in Alexandria
who would come back to New York,
or who was a Dartmouth graduate for all we know.
Who had things in his library or who, you know,
that these dealers could access in some way.
It was a small community.
But there it is.
They -- and I mean, when I was curator I would get letters
from all over people thinking
that the Met must want something like this.
Yeah. So -- and at first I thought --
I mean, nobody had ever heard of these dealers
and Debbie Haines helped, me try to find anything about them.
It took me quite a long time to even find who they were,
but then it became quite interesting because a brother
of theirs was a major church figure --
I think in the Dominican Order and he had a major role
in the acquisition of the Nagamati [inaudible].
The brother's owned a little tent in Gentile role,
but you can't tell who's going
to have something really important or, you know,
it could be a really minor dealer that somehow gets hold
of something that is important.
>> Do you think there's any benefit
to [inaudible] antiquities training
or do you think it's just [inaudible]?
>> Christine Lilyquist: Well, I think the acquisition
of objects is complicated.
I mean, I would have loved everything to stay in Egypt
and to be -- all the sand cleared away
and monuments reconstructed and preserved and safe guarded
and all of us could look at them,
but that certainly isn't the reality of things.
And I do think that in teaching collections and in universe
and even non-teaching regular museums larger public
institutions there's a definite role
that museum curators generally take very seriously of trying
to teach from these objects.
What I object to actually is to see the object
out of context because, you know,
it has a totally different feel or impression if you see it
in the environment with a strong sunlight and with the sand
or with the Nile or whatever.
So I think we miss all that by going into a museum,
but we study other aspects, you know,
when you have the object you're bound to examine it more closely
and you get much more out of it than you would --
if you just [inaudible] country with things.
Yes.
>> [Inaudible] showed an object
that you said had a strange inscription it's part of --
could you comment [inaudible]?
>> Christine Lilyquist: Well, it's not a strange inscription.
It's very difficult to read it because of it's --
it's a soft sandstone and the sculptor didn't carve it
that precisely.
So we know it's a Thalami, which means --
oops -- sorry about that.
It means that it is somewhere 330 B.C. or later.
When the Thalami's ruled.
And -- but we can't really say -- oops --
I'm trying to shut this down.
We can't really say which Thalami
because they would repeat --
part of their names would be repeated.
And John Wilson from Chicago who was the first person to ask --
that was asked to translate it suggested
like three different Thalami's it could be.
Most recently the expert today said it can't be those three,
you know, but it might be four others,
[laughs] so we haven't gotten any further along.
But, you know, more and more as things are computerized
in their databanks the information is collected
and searched better and so I think eventually maybe.
I'd like to find the temple it's from,
and I haven't been able to do that so far.
Kathy?
>> Kathy Hart: [Inaudible] something over the last year
or so [inaudible] lot of appeal [inaudible] antiquities
in the museum in Egypt.
Can you speak a little bit about what you know
about how things [inaudible]?
>> Christine Lilyquist: Well, I think it's pretty grim.
The person you might -- many
of you might have seen this man's [inaudible],
who was the person on Discovery Channel often.
He really -- he was trained here at Penn and he --
he's very bright, and he worked very hard.
But he was appointed by Mubarak and he left with Mubarak.
So since then there hasn't been any big personality
to take over.
A couple of people have been put in charge and they left.
A big problem is security without police.
I mean a police state does keep the police --
does keep some order, and the choice they have is just
to lock everything up at this point as much as they can.
And so I was last in Cairo about two years ago
and I feel really very lucky
to have gotten the information I did, because I think it's going
to be sometime before scholars will be able
to get information from the museum.
They just cannot open cupboards and cannot even --
I mean, you just don't where it's all going to lead.
So they don't want to lose their jobs
and they're being very careful about how they maintain things.
As far as the sites go, I understand that people can work,
but you know, it's all so unsettled.
You really don't know about the future.
And certainly, you know, there's great --
still great, great poverty in Egypt.
So people know that the archaeologist go there
and did things up and so they think oh, they must have gold.
That's why they're doing it.
So as soon as the archaeologist leave they go and --
well the only [cough in background] fine masonry
which means something to us, but it doesn't mean anything
for sale in the big market, so whole tombs have been destroyed,
which really shouldn't -- didn't need to have been.
But there weren't guards there who could secure things
and that's all very discouraging to the people who excavate.
We're glad for what's here [laughter] Okay.
[Applause]