Earliest Public Museums

Prof. Dr. Dina Ezz El-Din

• Around the third century B.C. Greece
(particularly the city of Pergamon) witnessed a
practice that was significant in the history of
museums.
• Statuary and paintings were brought from lands
controlled or conquered by Greek kings. Some of
these works were installed throughout the outdoor
spaces of Pergamon, while others appear to have
been reserved, perhaps in gallery-like settings, for
local artisans to imitate.
• This practice suggests a shift in the use of such
objects during the transition from Greek power
and influence to that of Rome – a shift from
serving as objects of religious veneration to
trophies of conquest and cultural veneration.

• With the advent of Roman expansion and the

arrival of looted statuary and paintings from
conquered lands coinciding with the
inauguration of a massive building program,
Greek statuary was used to ornament the
exteriors of new buildings and monuments
throughout ancient Rome.
“Rome became a museum of Greek art.”
• Early museums began as private collections of
wealthy individuals, families or institutions of
art and rare or curious natural objects and
artefacts. These were often displayed in so-
called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities.
• The world's oldest museum was built by a
Babylonian princess 2,500 years ago.
• It was built around 530 B.C. and was discovered
in 1925 by archaeologist Leonard Wooley.
• Woolley discovered a curious collection of
artefacts while excavating a Babylonian
palace. They were from many different times
and places, and yet they were neatly organized
and even labelled.
• Ennigaldi-Nanna was a priestess and princess, the
daughter of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire, who was also an antiquarian and
known as the first serious archaeologist in history.
• Encouraged by her father, Ennigaldi opened her palatial
antiquity museum during the Neo-Babylonian Empire
around 530 BCE, located in the state of Ur (modern-
day Iraq). It contained her own artifacts, many of which
she is thought to have excavated herself in southern
Mesopotamian.
• The collection displayed objects such as writing
tablets, jewellery, and carved statues which were
arranged in a very specific order to help the
visiting public follow the timeline and story of a
civilization.
• The objects were accompanied by “museum
labels” made of clay drums, written in three
languages including Sumerian, and provided
information about the object’s age, origin, and
significance. The categorization of her objects
were unique for her time and for many centuries
after her.
A clay cylinder inscribed with a description in three
languages, as used in Ennigaldi’s museum to
accompany an ancient artifact; these are the earliest
known “museum labels”.
 EARLIEST PUBLIC MUSEUMS
• Some of the oldest public museums in the
world opened in Italy during the
Renaissance, but the majority of them
opened during the 18th century.
 The Capitoline Museums-Rome
http://www.museicapitolini.org/en/il_museo/
storia_del_museo
• The creation of the Capitoline Museums has been
traced back to 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV donated a
group of bronze statues of great symbolic value to
the People of Rome.

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• The collections are closely linked to the city of
Rome, and most of the exhibits come from the
city itself.
 The Vatican Museums
• The Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani), the
second oldest museum in the world, traces its
origins to the public displayed sculptural
collection begun in 1506 by Pope Julius II.

• https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museiva
ticani/it.html
• The Vatican Museums are a group of museums
located inside the Vatican City, displaying works
from the immense collection built up by the Roman
Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including
some of the most renowned classical sculptures and
most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in
the world.
• - The Royal Armouries in the Tower of London
is Britain’s oldest museum, one of the oldest
museums in the world and home to the world’s
oldest visitor attraction.
• It opened to the public in 1660, though there had
been paying privileged visitors to the armouries
displays from 1592.
THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM-
OXFORD 1683

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 https://www.ashmolean.org/

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• The Ashmolean came into existence in 1682,
when the wealthy antiquary Elias Ashmole
gifted his collection to the University. It
opened as Britain’s first public museum, and
the world’s first university museum, in 1683.
• Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) was an English
historian, politician and scholar with an intense
interest in Alchemy (chemistry).
• Though the collection has changed
considerably, the founding principle
remains: that knowledge of humanity across
cultures and across times is important to
society.
 The British Museum
• https://www.britishmuseum.org
• The British Museum was founded in 1753 and
opened its doors in 1759. It was the first
national museum to cover all fields of human
knowledge, open to visitors from across the
world.
• Initially, visitors had to apply for tickets to see
the museum's collections during limited visiting
hours. In effect, this meant entry was restricted
to well-connected visitors who were given
personal tours of the collections by the
museum's Trustees and curators.
•
• From the 1830s onwards, regulations were
changed and opening hours were extended.
Gradually, the museum became truly open
and freely accessible to all.
• Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), physician and
President of the Royal Society, amassed a huge
collection of more than 80,000 'natural and artificial
objects with a vast library of over 40,000 books and
manuscripts, and 32,000 coins and medals.
• The 1753 Act purchased this for the public which
became a new kind of public institution, called the
British Museum.
 THE LOUVRE (1793)
(The Egyptian Department-1827)

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• The Louvre was originally built as a fortress in
1190, but was reconstructed in the 16th
century to serve as a royal palace. Like many
buildings, it was built and rebuilt over the
years.
• The National Assembly opened the Louvre
as a museum in August 1793 with a
collection of 537 paintings. The museum
closed in 1796 because of structural
problems with the building.
• Napoleon reopened the museum and
expanded the collection in 1801, and the
museum was renamed Musée Napoléon.
• Eager to promote the Egyptian civilization,
Jean-François Champollion succeeded in
convincing the French king, Charles X, to
purchase three of the major collections that
came up for sale at the time.
• By royal decree of May 15, 1826, he was
appointed curator of a new department in the
Louvre that was inaugurated on December
15, 1827.
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF
ART NEW YORK-1870

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• The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over
5,000 years of art from around the world for
everyone to experience and enjoy.
• https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met
• The Metropolitan Museum was founded on
April 13, 1870, "to be located in the City of
New York, for the purpose of establishing
and maintaining a Museum and library
of art, of encouraging and developing the
study of the fine arts, and the application
of arts to manufacture and practical life, of
advancing the general knowledge of
kindred subjects, and, to that end, of
furnishing popular instruction."
• On January 13, 2015, the Trustees of The
Metropolitan Museum of Art reaffirmed this
statement of purpose and supplemented it with the
following statement of mission:
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art collects,
studies, conserves, and presents significant
works of art across all times and cultures in
order to connect people to creativity,
knowledge, and ideas”.
 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• https://www.mfa.org/
• Founded in 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston opened its doors to the public on
July 4, 1876, the nation's centennial. The
MFA was then home to 5,600 works of art.
The collection and number of visitors have
grown over the years.
• Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art
museums in the world; the collection includes nearly
500,000 works of art, of which the ancient Egyptian
collection forms a large part.
• Much of the Egyptian collection derives from
excavations conducted by Dr. George A. Reisner,
from 1905-1942, on behalf of the Museum and
Harvard University. Many exceptional works of art
came to Boston through formal agreements with the
Egyptian government.
• Gifts, purchases, and exchanges have enriched the
collection.
Earliest Museums in Egypt
• Until the mid-19th century, there was no
regulation of the antiquities trade in Egypt.
• The Western demand for ancient Egyptian
artifacts was intensified by the Napoleon
Expedition (1798-1801) to Egypt and the
compilation and publication of the
Description de l’Egypte.

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• The first step toward the
control of Egyptian
antiquities was taken on
15 August 1835, when
the ruler of Egypt,
Mohamed Ali issued a
decree banning the
unauthorized removal of
antiquities from the
country. This decree also
designated a building in
the Ezbekiah Gardens,
Cairo, to serve as a
storehouse for artifacts.

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• This collection of artifacts was then transferred
to another building in the citadel of Salah El-
Din.
• When the Austrian Duke Maximillian visited
Egypt in 1855, the whole collection was given
to him as a gift by Abbas Pacha.
• In 1858 Said Pasha, then Viceroy of Egypt,
approved the creation of the Antiquities
Service (officially the Service des Antiquités)
to stem the continuing illicit trade in Egyptian
artifacts, and appointed French scholar
Auguste Mariette as its director.

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Mariette’s excavations at
Saqqara

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• In 1858 Mariette created the first national
museum in the Near East, which opened in
1863 in an old building in the Boulaq section
of Cairo.
• Then, due to the flooding of the Boulaq
Museum, its collection was transferred in
1890 to an annex of the Giza Palace of Ismail
Pasha.

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The Giza Museum (1890-1902)
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo
(Tahrir Square 1902)
 dinaezzeldin2012.dee@gmail.com
dina.ezzeldin@alexu.edu.eg
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