Palette
Tavolozza
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”
Naquada I; acquired in 1901
inv. 66002
Slate
Length 10 cm
Egypt
The cosmetic palette is fish-shaped and reproduces the form of a fish from the Nile River, Tilapia nilotica. The palette was found in a woman's tomb along with a turtle-shaped cosmetic palette, ivory findings, a comb, a huge ring and ceramics. 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, director of the "Museo Preistorico Etnografico e Kircheriano”, decided to expand the Egyptian archaeological collection. In 1878 he began to acquire important groups, but the main body of the collection was 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 Enrico Hillyer Giglioli’s collection entered the museum collection.
Marina Minozzi "Palette" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;it;182;en
Prepared by: Marina Minozzi
Copyedited by: Anne Dowell
MWNF Working Number: IT2 040
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