Friday, February 25, 2011

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Turin

Al Masry Al Youm

“The road to Memphis and Thebes passes through Turin,” wrote the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs Jean-François Champollion when he came to Turin in 1824. The Egyptian Museum of antiquities in Turin, an elegant city in the Italian northern region of Piedmont, is the second most important Egyptian museum in the world and the only one exclusively dedicated to the art and culture of ancient Egypt after the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Unlike the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the collection in Turin is well organized according to a chronological and thematic principle, resulting in less confusion for visitors.

King Carlo Felice, who acquired Bernardino Drovetti’s collection of 5268 objects, founded the museum in 1824. Since then, it has been hosted in the Academy of Sciences Palace, which was designed by baroque-period architect Guarino Guarini for the Jesuit school.

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