Disk
Disco
Rome, Italy
National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography “Luigi Pigorini”
About MIBACT | National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography “Luigi Pigorini”, Rome
Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini”
New Kingdom (16th–11th century BC); discovered in 1824
inv. 156392
Glass; gold
Diameter 7.2 cm; length of the golden foil 4,6 cm; glass thickness 0,6 cm
Egypt
The disk in green glass with a golden square foil is considered of remarkable interest because of its label, attributed to Ippolito Rosellini, which proves that the relic was found inside a tomb in Thebes. Rosellini, one of the main figures of the Franco-Tuscan expedition in Egypt, wrote on it "Disco di vetro con entro una lamina d'oro. Trovato in una tomba a Tebe, Egitto, da I. Rosellini 1824 -dono di Elenina Ox Sicard, dicembre 1902". The relic was later acquired by Enrico Hillyer Giglioli. As a result of the excavations by W. Petrie and J. De Morgan, who documented the existence of an era preceding the 1st dynasty, Luigi Pigorini decided to expand the Egyptian archaeological collection in the "Museo Preistorico Etnografico e Kircheriano" which he directed at that time. In 1878 he began to acquire important groups, with the main body of the collection donated by David Randall-MacIver in 1901, after the excavations he carried out on the behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund in the town of el-Amrah, Upper Egypt. Another major purchase — from the Italian Archaeological Mission in Egypt (excavations of Hammamiye) led by Ernesto Schiaparelli, director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin — followed in 1905. The last main acquisition took place in 1913 when the Egyptian objects from the Enrico Hillyer Giglioli’s collection entered the museum collection.
Marina Minozzi "Disk" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;it;179;en
Prepared by: Marina Minozzi
Copyedited by: Anne Dowell
MWNF Working Number: IT2 037