Egyptian
The Ure Museum has approximately 330 objects from Egypt, ranging from Predynastic pottery through to Coptic and Islamic textiles. The main bulk of the Egyptian collection emerged from three key acquisitions. In 1909 Lady Hilda Petrie gifted objects from the excavations of her husband,William Matthew Flinders, to University College Reading library. This was followed the subsequent year by a purchase (most likely through a local subscription) from the British School of Archaeology in Egypt (BSAE) of further objects from Petrie’s latest excavations. Therefore provenance of the objects from both of these acquisitions are therefore mostly well recorded.
The third important acquisition of Egyptian antiquities came from the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology in 1923. Percy Ure was made aware that Liverpool were selling off duplicate objects by their secretary, Meta Williams, whose brother Robert Stenhouse Williams was a professor of Bacteriology at University College Reading. Meta later helped write labels for the objects sent to Reading. Many of these objects came from excavations overseen by John Garstang and so, like the Petrie acquisitions, well provenienced.
Some of the most notable items in the Egyptian collection include:
- A 12th Dynasty model boat from Beni Hasan (E.23.3) purchased from the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology
- A Middle Kingdom mirror inscribed with a princess’s name and title (E.65.10) from either Liverpool of Petrie acquisitions
- A mummified cats head (59.2.7) donated by Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the Faculty of Science at Reading University, Henry Bassett
- Four New Kingdom faience shabtis from Abydos (E.23.51-55) purchased from the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology
- Fragments of a 21 Dynasty coffin for a Chantress of Amun (E.62.49) from the Petrie purchases
- Third Intermediate Period/Late Period limestone stele from Abydos ( E.23.2) purchased from Liverpool Institute of Archaeology
- 21 fragments of Coptic textiles (2005.7.1-21) from an unknown source.