British Egyptology in the Nineteenth Century

The earliest collections of Egyptian artifacts were those pieces taken by the Roman empire. There are more Egyptian obelisks in Rome today than there are left in Egypt. In the nineteenth century, British collections were built by the same people whose work comprises volume two. They began as private collections, meant as status symbols usually for the wealthy, or for those who wished to show evidence of their wide travels. However, gradually, many of these collections were left in wills to municipal institutions or turned into publicly available collections themselves.

The British Museum, originally founded in 1759, opened its first purpose built gallery for Egyptian antiquities in 1808. The Townley Gallery was built to house the antiquities seized from the French in 1801, including the Rosetta Stone, and the collection has been growing ever since. Later, the British Museum hired people who were already in Egypt, or who were going to Egypt of their own accord, to gather and send back artifacts. As the discipline of archaeology in Egypt became a scholarly pursuit, museums began to sponsor their own expeditions in order to fill their now bursting stores. Collecting in order to possess the past, both physically and ideologically, of a subjected people was the point.