São Paulo – Egyptian relics in the collection of the National Library of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro can help Egyptologists at Rio’s National Museum rebuild part of the collection lost to the fire that ravaged its building in September 2018. A set of stelas and decals were gifted by the iconography section of the National Library to a technical visit organized by the National Museum last August.
Stelas are stone or wooden slabs featuring hieroglyphs, the writing system used in Ancient Egypt. Photos of them (pictured above) were taken by Marc Ferrez, a Brazilian photographer who recorded the daily life of the 19th– and 20th century. A decal is a plastic, cloth, paper or ceramic substrate that has printed on it a pattern or image.
Davi Duarte, PhD student and member of the Egyptology group Seshat at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), said the set of pieces opens up new avenues for research in various areas of knowledge. He believes the decals to be from the region of Saqqara, south of Cairo.
According to the head of the Restoration Department of the National Library, Jandira Flaeschen, the decals will require restoration as they present stains, yellowness and tears. She believes, however, that the “restoration process of these works is totally doable by the Restoration Department of the National Library.”
The pictures show the stelas that used to belong to the National Library. Most of them were lost to the 2018 fire – fire and water turned the ancient slabs into lime putty. Some of them were conservated as they were protected by glass cases and other materials. The pictures don’t need to be repaired, and Duarte believes they will assist researchers in rebuilding what was burned. Despite the loss, Duarte says the Brazilian collection of Egyptian artifacts is still the most relevant in Latin America.
Inheritance from emperor
The decals were inherited from emperor Pedro II of Brazil. A true enthusiast of Egypt, Pedro II visited the country twice, in 1871 and 1876. He was interested in languages, and he could read Arabic and other languages, in addition to speaking Latin, French, English, Italian and Spanish.
Duarte said that after the Proclamation of the Republic on November 15, 1889, Pedro II of Brazil asked that his library were broke apart and its collection distributed across several institutions, like the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro, the National Library, and the National Museum.
Besides his fondness for artifacts from Egypt, Pedro II had another reason to be interested in the subject, says Duarte. “Egyptomania was very present back then. It was fashionable among the aristocracy and the nobility of the 19th century. It was a symbol of status having an Egyptian collection,” he says.
He mentions as examples of this appreciation for the history and particularly the objects of Egypt the obelisks and artifacts that are now showcased in some of the major European capitals. “The imagery of Egypt sparked a fascination in the 19th-century aristocracies and a headlong rush for smuggled artifacts. In Brazil’s case, he (the emperor) bought everything legally. Brazil’s collection is not a case of repatriation, as everything was either bought legally or gifted to Pedro II,” he says.
According to information from the National Library, the photos were donated on June 11, 1904, by Arthur Azevedo. One of the files holding the decals includes information that they were acquired by D. Pedro II on November 3, 1871, at the Bulaq Museum in “Egypto.”
Duarte believes the relevance of historical data and the origin of the pieces will open up new research paths. The documents will be submitted to specific analyses, including x rays, and can lead researchers to sites from where they are believed to come from.
“We don’t know how many decals were made. They can be one of a kind, from one site,” says Duarte. This collection can help Egyptologists, archeologists and historians broaden their research in pursuit of answers to old questions. And they also can reach the general public with the technological tools available now. “One major thing is that these records of stelas can be 3D reconstructed,” said Duarte.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
