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| Museums of Italy |
| Egyptian Museum of Turin |
| Via Accademia delle Scienze 6 - Torino |
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Opening Hours:
Winter: 8:30 a.m. -7:30 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday (January 1st to June
10 and September 10 to December 31st)
Summer: 9:30 a.m. -8:30 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday (June 11 to September 9)
Closing days: on Mondays, January 1st and Christmas day
Official Web Site: www.museoegizio.it |
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| The Egyptian Museum of Turin (the second in the world after the Cairo Museum) was
established in 1824, although the University of Turin already owned an important collection of Egyptian material.
In the early 19th century, Carlo Felice, influenced by the interest in Egyptian culture which had been spreading
all over Europe following Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt, acquired a substantial number of the finds collected by
the Piedmontese Bernardino Drovetti, French consul general in Egypt. Between 1903 and 1920 the Italian Archaeological
Mission launched a number of excavation campaigns along the Nile, thus acquiring additional material; new pieces
were also added to the museum between 1930 and 1969. In 1988 the museum was entirely renovated. |
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The Most Important Items
The Drovetti Collection, original nucleus of the Egyptian Museum, gathers 98 statues, as well as an extraordinary
collection of papyri which can be considered as the most important set of Egyptian written documents in the world.
Included in the collection are the Royal Papyrus, also known as the Papyrus from Turin, with the list of all the
kings from 3,00 to 1,600 BC; paintings from the tomb of It, discovered in 1911, representing religious scenes as
well as agricultural and artisan activities; and the extraordinary cloth, discovered in 1930 in a prehistorically
tomb at Gebelein, which is the most ancient painted in the world (3,500 BC); it depicts boats, hunting scenes and
ritual dances. The Ellesija Temple from Nubia dating back to more than 3,500 years ago, was presented by the Egyptian
government to Italy following the works carried out by the Italian mission in removing monuments and temples from
the area of the Assuan Dyke. In order to be transported to Italy, it was extracted and then reconstructed in the
museum. |
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The Tomb of Kha
The tomb, discovered in 1906 during the excavation campaign carried out by the Italian archeological mission in
Deir el Medina, is the most impressive and remarkable ensemble of the whole museum. Dating back to 3,500 BC, it
houses sarcophagi and statues, as well as furniture, garments and grooming items. |
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The Academy of Sciences Façade
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Description of the collections
The Egyptian antiquities in the Museum cover all the arc of his history about the periods:
" Upper Paleolithic (from 40000 b.C.)
" Lower Neolithic (from 5000 b.C.)
" Old Kingdom (from 2650 b.C.)
" Middle Kingdom (from 2050 b.C.)
" New Kigdom (from 1550 b.C.)
" Late period (from 1100 b.C.)
" Hellenistic (332 b.C. - 30 a.C.)
" Romanic (30 b.C. - 324 a.C.)
" Byzantine (324 a.C. - 639 a.C.) |
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