Description
The Egyptological Collections of the University of Pisa, named since 2021 after Edda Bresciani, are a collection of Egyptian antiquities on Via San Frediano, in the center of Pisa. It is not a huge museum, but it has valuable pieces, above all from Sudan, and a history tied to the first steps of Italian Egyptology.
It all began in 1962, when Laura Birga Picozzi, a descendant of Ippolito Rosellini, donated her ancestor's memorabilia to the University. A native of Pisa and a pupil of Champollion, Rosellini is regarded as the father of Italian Egyptology. The donation also brought a watercolor with a portrait of Champollion and a sketch for the frontispiece of his Monuments of Egypt and Nubia.
The big coup came in 1964. The archaeologist Michela Schiff Giorgini donated about 400 finds from her excavations at Soleb and Sedeinga, in Sudan: among the pieces is a large scarab of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, with a hieroglyphic text recalling his lion hunts.
The most precious piece is the blue goblet, a 3rd-century AD glass with colored and gold decoration and a Greek inscription: "Drink and may you live!" The same collection includes sculptures, ivories, bronzes and glass from the Meroitic period.
Other collections have more documentary value. More than fifteen hundred ostraca, terracotta potsherds used as a writing surface, form an archive from the Roman era, largely in Demotic, on the grain trade between Oxyrhynchus and the oasis of Bahariya.
A more recent donation brought fourteen bronze tools from the foundation deposits of Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, displayed in a pyramid-shaped case.
Among the recent acquisitions are also a Ptolemaic stele showing the pharaoh making an offering to the god Thoth, in the form of a baboon, and six small bronzes of deities.
Everything else has arrived over the years through other donations, targeted purchases and excavation and research campaigns in Egypt run by the University of Pisa. Since July 16, 2021 the collections have borne the name of Edda Bresciani, a world-famous Egyptologist who died in November 2020.
It all began in 1962, when Laura Birga Picozzi, a descendant of Ippolito Rosellini, donated her ancestor's memorabilia to the University. A native of Pisa and a pupil of Champollion, Rosellini is regarded as the father of Italian Egyptology. The donation also brought a watercolor with a portrait of Champollion and a sketch for the frontispiece of his Monuments of Egypt and Nubia.
The big coup came in 1964. The archaeologist Michela Schiff Giorgini donated about 400 finds from her excavations at Soleb and Sedeinga, in Sudan: among the pieces is a large scarab of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, with a hieroglyphic text recalling his lion hunts.
The most precious piece is the blue goblet, a 3rd-century AD glass with colored and gold decoration and a Greek inscription: "Drink and may you live!" The same collection includes sculptures, ivories, bronzes and glass from the Meroitic period.
Other collections have more documentary value. More than fifteen hundred ostraca, terracotta potsherds used as a writing surface, form an archive from the Roman era, largely in Demotic, on the grain trade between Oxyrhynchus and the oasis of Bahariya.
A more recent donation brought fourteen bronze tools from the foundation deposits of Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, displayed in a pyramid-shaped case.
Among the recent acquisitions are also a Ptolemaic stele showing the pharaoh making an offering to the god Thoth, in the form of a baboon, and six small bronzes of deities.
Everything else has arrived over the years through other donations, targeted purchases and excavation and research campaigns in Egypt run by the University of Pisa. Since July 16, 2021 the collections have borne the name of Edda Bresciani, a world-famous Egyptologist who died in November 2020.