AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENTARY PAPYRUS
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AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENTARY PAPYRUS

LATE PERIOD, SAITE, CIRCA 6TH CENTURY B.C.

Details
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENTARY PAPYRUS
LATE PERIOD, SAITE, CIRCA 6TH CENTURY B.C.
Bearing multiple fragmentary lines in hieratic from the Book of the Dead with a rubric in red ink, mounted on paper, in gilt wood glazed frame
Papyrus: 15¼ x 5¾ in. (39 x 14.6 cm.) max.
Provenance
Found with (or in) a mummy at Thebes by archaeologists from Napoleon's expedition in 1800.
Swiss private collection, Zurich, 1990s.
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

The paper mount with ink inscription reading: "Fragments d'un manuscrit papyrus trouvé dans une momie de thèbes, en l'an 8 de la république."

The Napoleonic Expedition landed in Egypt in 1798. Along with a 55,000 strong army, Napoleon also brought with him groups of French artists, engineers and scientists, known as the savants, to study the remains of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. In 1799 a group of French soldiers, under the command of Pierre Bouchard, found the Rosetta Stone which proved crucial in the later decipherment of the Egyptian script, being inscribed with the same text in hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek.

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