Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities
Headed by Dr. Alessia Amenta, the Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities Department includes the Museo Gregoriano Egizio Egyptian Museum and the collection of Egyptian and Ancient Near East artifacts, together with a collection of Islamic objects. Founded by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839, the Egyptian Museum was arranged by Father L.M. Ungarelli, one of the first Italian Egyptologists. Rooms I and II still contain decorative motifs which imitate Egyptian architecture, dated to the opening of the museum: cornices, columns and winged solar discs. Room II contains the inscription by Gregory XVI on the cornice, written in hieroglyphics and composed by Father Ungarelli to celebrate the foundation of this museum. Rooms III and IV still retain their original early 19th Century decoration, with the walls painted in imitation alabaster and various landscapes evoking Egypt painted by Giuseppe de Fabris. The collection consists of Egyptian and Egyptianizing antiquities acquired by the popes, but mostly donated, from the late 18th Century on.
Dr. Alessia Amenta
Curator
Alessia Amenta has been curator of the Department of Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities Department of the Vatican Museums since 2007. She graduated with a PhD in Egyptology from the University "La Sapienza" in Rome, where she also completed postdoctoral work in Egyptology. She attended courses for specialists in the field at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin and Oxford. She has participated in numerous excavations in Italy and Egypt, most notably those of Theban Tomb 27 of Sheshonq, the Funerary Temple of Merenptah and the Funerary Temple of Amenhotep III in Luxor (West Bank).
She serves as scientific curator and promoter of the "International Conference of Young Egyptologists", launched in 2003 and now in its fifth cycle (Vienna, 2015), and ‘Vatican Coffin Conference’ (Vatican Museum, in 2013 and in 2017).
She also serves as director of international projects such as the ‘Vatican Coffin Project’, which focuses on the study of polychrome, wooden coffins of the Third Intermediate Priod, the atican Mummy Project which studies the many human and animal mummies in the collections of the Vatican Museums., the ‘Progetto Sekhmet,’ which focuses on the study of the extraordinary production of hundreds of statues in granodiorite of the goddess Sekhmet for the Funerary Temple of Amenhotep III, and participating in the ‘Bab el-Gasus Project’ concerning the study and the reconstruction of the Bab el-Gasus cache.
She is scientific curator of the Ancient Egypt Series published by L’Erma di Bretschneider and Studies on Ancient Egypt published by Tau Publishing, co-editor of the ‘Gate of the Priests’ Series, Brill Publishers -Leiden, and referee for the ‘Journal of Egyptian Archaeology’.
Spotlights
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in the Vatican Museums
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