New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1908-05-17
MANY RELICS OF EGYPT.
Brooklyn Museum Preparing for
~. Exhibition of antiquities.

LUUCOGtSOH VI dHCtfNsteCo'
For the first time in its history the Central Mu-
scum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
Sciences is TO have display of Egyptian antiaui-
ties Unknown to Brooklyntes in general. Profess
sor William H. Goodyear, the museums curator of
fine arts has been collecting with this OBJECT In
view for years. and he has now in the store rooms
of the big building in the Eastern Parkway a large
quantity of material.
The work of preparing the exhibits for visitors
is just beginning. So far three mummes have
been placed in cases There are hundreds OF Cd
jects, extremely rare and valuable. to be ar
ranged and prepared for exhibition The curator
has enough material to fit up an entire room OF
the museum The chief drawback to his work.
as to the work of the heads of the other depart
ments is the lack of proper cases In when 10 set
out the relics Professor Goodyear has been
close student of Egyptian antiquities for many
years Some time ago he published THE Gram
mar of the Lotus" which required great research
into the past of Egypt.
The first exhibit to be placed in the possession OF
the museum was a bit of cloth from one OF the
oldest historic mummes in existence This was
turned over to the museum by Miss AmeHa b.
Edwards the Egyptologist. before the building was
erected in 1891 The cloth once formed part OF
the wrappngs of the body of Ra Naier daChs
from 1000 B. c., which was found at Meduih ny
Dr w NJ F. Petrie, and is now owned by the
ROYAL College of Surgeons of London Ihe last
Esvntian curiosties arrived at the museum
couple CT weeks ago and made up OF hundreds
of pieces.
The museum has drawn it's collection from sew
era, sources The first considerable contribution
..ua from the Egyptian Exploration Fund Society
in 1902 In 1866 DIR. Petrie, acting as agent LOT
the museum, bought a large number OF ooJects'
Henry de Morgan excavated a quantity OF ma
tarsaI for the museum in Esneh district in 1901
collection which arrived within the last rev Gays
;s the De Potter collection, part of which was ex-
htbited in Chicago in 1903 Much Of this was once
the property of Clot Bey who sold most OF MS col
lection to the French government, but retained
many valuable pieces. When he died De Potter
bought the collection from his heirs with the aid
and advice of Brugsch Bey, of the Museum Oh
Cairo.
Some of the most valuable Egyptian relics in the
museum are included in this last acquisition Ore
of objects of which the curator is particularly
proud is the great triple sarcophasus or ftah-oe-
Kha-En-Apt High Priest of Anlmon and Governor
of Thebes who lived toward the close of the twenty
first dynasty, about one thousand years before
Christ The great has not been thoroughly ex-
plored as yet and the mummy is still undisturbed
The two outer sectIons-two boxes. similar in form!
one of which fits within the other-are painted
with a great variety of figures, illustrating the
ritual dead. 1t found in 1893 near DER
El-Bahari The same collection contains thirty or
forty bronzes, which regarded as particularly
fine, and two hundred or more amulets-smail fig
yres of the gods made of -cotta-dating from
400, or whereabouts, B. c.
An object in which every child will be interested
a
and half long-in which eight figures sit. at
the steering oar one on the lookout in the bow
and six amidship propelling the bark with strange
little oars. The vessel has mast and a brown
sail, all ready for There are also dozens of
necklaces made of various materials. from gold
ra-cotta, of which elaborate.
object that is to attract attention, from
Sunday school children anyway, is tablet Of
limestone and inscribed with strange devices. 1t
must have been such tablets that the Ten
Commandments were written for the guidance of
the children of Israel. then just released from the
bondage of the Egyptians Moses was educated
by the Egyptians, and doubt cut tablets such
as will be exhibition soon at the museum This
tablet dates back about 400 B. c. 1t was found at
Thebes.
The museum half dozen objects that are
about anything in any Egyptian collec-
ton Two copper heads dating from be-
fore 5000 B. c. The only other such head IS
in the Museum of Cairo There eighty alabaster
vases and bowls and one hundred of common clay
a number of pottery gods and goddesses and guam
titles of flint instruments. The latter may have
been made fifteen thousand to twenty thousand
years before Christ. Professor Goodyear believes
that between the flint hammers and the flint saws
In the collection fully ten thousand years must
have interviewed, and the flint date back more
than six thousand years before Christ. One OF the
strange relics is pottery Goddess of Fertility
The curator believes that 1t ia exceedingly rare
He that it has strong resemblance to sim
liar works OF the ancient Chaldeans Much of the
pottery is decorated with figures or with bands of
black In the historic period the Egyptians did not
decorate their pottery.
Among the other objects, one will be of interest
to engineers. 1t Is funny little model that was
first thought to be sledge and was so
marked. It Is now known TO be a model of the
instrument used by the ancient builders Of the
pyramids and their successors In lifting great
masses of stone. They apparently had nothing like
the modern derrick TO aid them. The block OF
probably placed on the middle of the
edw sid 80
two rockers. First one end of the sled was tilted
up with crowbars and wedges and then the other
end until the rock was hoisted to the place where
IL needed. There few of these models in
existence. The model was found at DER ell Behari
at the foundations of an ancient temple. by Auguste
Choisy, the French architect II dates from about
100 years B. c. The ancients had a custom which
is preserved in cornerstone laying AS We
place in the stone newspapers and lists of hene-
factors. ETC. the ancients placed In their corner
stones models of tools. chiefly those used in the
construction work
The ancients had another peculiar custom which