Fascinating letter from the English Egyptologist, John Gardner WILKINSON.

Sir John Gardner WILKINSON (1797.1875)

Autograph letter signed to the Egyptologist Émile Prisse d'Avesnes.

Three pages in-8°, in English, illustrated with hieroglyphs.

[London] November 11, 1842.

 

“I send you the hieroglyphics of a fragment at Tel-el-Amarna of a piece of pottery I found there. »

Fascinating illustrated letter from the father of British Egyptology illustrating his discoveries to his French colleague, Prisse d'Avesnes. Wilkinson sketches a classic scene of worship from the Amarna era and the reign of Akhenaten. The mythical pharaoh, instigator of monotheism in Egypt, is represented here bathed by the beneficial rays of the solar disk Aton.

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Original version :

 

My dear Sir, I send you the hieroglyphics of a fragment at Tel-el-Amarna of a piece of pottery I found there.

Names at Isbayda near Shekh Said said opposite Mellawi

[Hieroglyph] together

On small statue at Vatican – Rome [H]

In Ashmolean Museum Oxford [H]

[H] Seal of Mr Millingen

British Museum [M]

[H] British Museum.

[H] British Mus.

[H] Kosseir Road

[H] Br. Museum.

[H] British Mus.

At Paris painted by Col[one]l Felix [H]

[H] Papyrus of Janni

Here are the instances from new find, & I think I gave you these last when in Cairo. If I find others I will send them to you. I hope you have received the seal, for the association but Mr. Johnston will not perhaps go direct to Egypt & probably not be there until December. I hope society is going on well. As yet I have been too much employed & have been unable to look out on for any thing that may be [of]  use to it, but will do so when I return to town in Spring. I hope you received a copy of my extracts from Alexandria. I think I smell one. Pray let me know. Remember me very kindly to Dr Abbott and accept my best wishes for the success of your valuable labors. With which I am yours very truly. Gardner Wilkinson.

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French version :

 

My dear Sir, I am sending you the hieroglyphs of a fragment at Tel-el-Amarna of a piece of pottery that I found there.

Names in Isbayda near Shekh Said opposite Mellawi

[Hieroglyphs] set

On a small statue in the Vatican – Rome [H]

At the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford [H]

[H] Seal of Mr. Millingen

British Museum [M]

[H] British Museum

[H] British Mus.

[H] Kosseir Road

[H] Br. Museum.

[H] British Mus.

In Paris painted by Col[one]l Félix [H]

[H] Janni Papyrus

Here are the examples of new discoveries, and I think I gave them to you last time in Cairo. If I find any more, I'll send them to you. I hope you have received the seal for the association but Mr. Johnston may not go directly to Egypt and probably will not be there until December. I hope the company is doing well. Until now I have been too busy and have not been able to see to anything that might be of use to him, but I will do so when I return to town in the spring. I hope you have received a copy of my excerpts from Alexandria. I think I sent one. Please let me know. Recall my best regards to Dr. Abbott and accept my best wishes for the success of your valuable work. With which I am truly yours. Gardner Wilkinson.

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Arriving in Egypt in 1821, at the age of 24, John Gardner Wilkinson traveled the country for 12 years, carrying out numerous hieroglyphic surveys of the monuments and tombs explored. In August 1822, he met, in Akhmîm, in Middle Egypt, another explorer, Frédéric Cailliaud (1787.1869), who, like him, had come to the site to copy hieroglyphic inscriptions. Like Cailliaud, Wilkinson copies the Royal Table of Abydos.

In 1824, Wilkinson became the first explorer to visit the tombs of notables in the northern part of the site of Amarna, the ancient capital founded by the pharaoh Akhenaten.

The drawing on the first page of the letter represents a classic scene of worship from the Amarna era – that is to say, from the reign of Akhenaten. The decor shows the latter bathed by the beneficial rays of the solar disk Aton. Unfortunately, Wilkinson does not give any details here as to the exact location of the setting which remains unknown to Egyptologists to this day.

Although Wilkinson reproduced this same drawing by Akhenaten in his work published in 1843: Modern Egypt and Thebes: being a description of Egypt, including information required for travelers in that country (page 73) , the original decor was never found. Obviously, it was destroyed – like many other vestiges present in the Amarna capital – by the depredations of travelers, tourists and other history merchants.

Wilkinson's drawing is one of the rare depictions showing King Akhenaten wearing the Atef crown. Only one other fragment representing the king with this crown is known to date: that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

 

Returning to England in 1833 for health reasons, Wilkinson returned to Egypt in 1842 for a few months and carried out further prospecting. On this same date, another explorer – Egyptologist was present in the lands of the pharaohs: Émile Prisse d'Avesnes (1807-1879). From 1836 to 1844, the latter traveled through Egypt. In his travel notebooks, he notes, notes and draws ancient monuments, thus managing to accumulate considerable documentation which will give rise, in 1848, to the publication of his work: Egyptian monuments, bas-reliefs, paintings, inscriptions etc. according to drawings made on site .

In 1842, Prisse d'Avesnes created in Cairo with Doctor Abbott, an Egyptologist collector, a literary society, a library and a center for scientific relations: the Literary Association of Egypt . Prisse d'Avesnes is its vice-president; Abbott, the secretary. A year after its creation, this association has more than a hundred members including Champollion-Figeac (older brother of the decipherer) and John Gardner Wilkinson.

This unpublished letter from Wilkinson to Prisse d'Avesnes demonstrates that the two Egyptologists knew each other and exchanged information regularly.

Beyond the elements coming from Amarna, Wilkinson sent his colleague numerous lists of royal names. The sending of these royal names is perhaps linked to the project of dismantling the bedroom of Karnak's ancestors by Prisse d'Avesnes which began in the spring of 1843 (cf. Karine Madrigal and Jean-Claude Goyon, The bedroom ancestors of the temple of Amon-Rê in Karnak, Unpublished letters from Émile Prisse d'Avesnes to Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac , Éditions Khéops, 2016).

The royal names sent by Wilkinson were noted on objects from the collections of the Louvre Museum, the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Vatican Museum. Others come from on-site surveys of Egyptian monuments: for example, on the Kossayr Road site, where Wilkinson surveys the cartridges of King Djedkare – Isesi, pharaoh of the Old Kingdom. The Egyptologist probably found these cartridges in the necropolis of high dignitaries buried during the Old Kingdom.

Likewise, several cartridges noted on the site "of Isabayda near Sekh Said opposite Mellawi " were transmitted by Wilkinson to Prisse d'Avesnes. These will also be reproduced in his work Modern Egypt and Thebes (pages 70-71) as well as in the papers of Nestor the Host – one of Champollion's companions during the trip to Egypt of 1828-29 (BnF, NAF 20396, folio 272 v).

Note that, on May 27, 1843, Prisse d'Avesnes sent a letter to Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac in which he reproduced these same hieroglyphs which actually appear on the jamb of a door of the tomb of Mererou Bebi in Cheikh Said. These are the cartridges of King Userkaf from the beginning of the 5th ^dynasty .

Wilkinson also mentions a "Millingen seal". He refers here to the collector James Millingen (1774-1845) (cf. Le Bars-Tosi, Florence, “James Millingen, the Nestor of modern archeology”, in M. Royo et alii (dir.), Du voyage savant to the territories of archeology , INHA/University of Tours conference proceedings [Paris, June 2010], Paris, De Boccard, 2012, p. 171-186.).

Finally, Wilkinson sent Prisse d'Avesnes copies of cartridges of kings made by Major General Orlando Félix (1790-1860) in Paris. Orlando Félix, traveler and Egyptologist, had also worked on the Egyptian dynasties.

For the cartridges from the Vatican Museum, we notice that of Ramses on the far left.