Petrie collection exhibition at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum

http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=18741

"The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum will open the exhibit Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College, London on February 17 and run through July 22, 2007. It’s an exhibition with all the trappings of an historical novel. The dogged archaeologist. The lady adventurer. A dazzling collection of clues to a lost age. While touring Egypt in the late 19th century, the popular writer Amelia Edwards (1831-1891) was disturbed by the neglect and damage she observed at ancient Egyptian monuments and archaeological sites. Upon returning to her native England, Edwards founded the Egypt Exploration Fund to promote more carefully managed excavations. Enter Sir William Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), renowned for his scientific techniques, extensive experience, and scholarly work in the field of Egyptian archaeology. . . . Amelia Edwards became a devoted patron to Petrie, who acknowledged Edwards’ support by sending her many beautiful antiquities, including jewelry, scarabs, statuary, funerary tablets, pottery, and writings on linen and papyrus. Upon her death, Edwards bequeathed these gifts and her fortune to the University College London (the only English university then offering degrees to women) to establish the United Kingdom’s first professorial chair in Egyptology. In 1892, Petrie assumed the chairship and responsibility for what would become the Petrie Museum. Two decades and many dozens of excavations later, Petrie sold his own extensive collection to UCL, creating one of the largest and most important collections of Egyptian antiquities outside of Egypt."

The Museum is located on the Mount Holyoke College campus, 12 miles north of Springfield and 10 miles south of Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S..

See the above article for the full story.

The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum website for the exhibition can be found at:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/artmuseum/exhibitions/index.html#paper

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