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THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM AT GÎZEH.

The Khedevial collection of Egyptian antiquities, formerly exhibited in the Museum at Bûlâk, is now arranged in a large number of rooms in the Palace at Gîzeh, a building which is said to have been built at a cost of nearly five millions sterling. This edifice, which is pleasantly situated in spacious grounds close to the river, was opened by H.H. the Khedive on January 12, 1890.

For many years the condition and arrangement of the antiquities exhibited in the Bûlâk and Gizeh Museums have been notorious subjects for complaint on the part of the Egyptologist and the tourist. The Egyptologist could obtain no trustworthy information about the antiquities which he knew were being acquired year by year, and the tourist visited the collection time after time and winter after winter, and went away on each occasion feeling that nothing had been done to help him to understand the importance of a number of objects which guide-books and experts told him were famous and of the greatest value to the artist, ethnographer, philologist, and historian. That marvellous man Mariette had gathered together from all parts a series of unique specimens of Egyptian sculpture and art of the earliest dynasties, and had, owing to the parsimony of the Egyptian government, been obliged to house them in the buildings of an old post-office at Bûlâk, and thither, for several years, the curious of all nations bent their steps. As his great excavations went on, the collection at Bûlâk became larger, until at last it was found necessary to store coffins, sarcophagi, mummies, stele, stone statues, etc., in the sheds attached to the buildings like boxes of preserved meats in a grocer's shop. With the arrival of the Dêr el-Baḥari mummies and coffins the crowding of objects became greater, for the civilized world demanded that a

place of honour should be afforded to the well-preserved mummy of Rameses the Great, and to those of the mighty kings who were his ancestors and successors. For one object laid by in the "magazine" two new ones arrived to claim its place.

Under the beneficent rule of M. Maspero, the successor of Mariette in the direction of the Museum, and that of E. Brugsch Bey, Mariette's colleague, excavations were undertaken by natives and others in all parts of Egypt, and the authorities of the Museum found themselves called upon to provide exhibition rooms for antiquities of the Greek, Roman, Arabic, and Coptic periods. This was an impossibility, and at last it became certain that the antiquities must be moved to a larger building. Moreover, many people viewed with alarm the situation of the Bûlâk Museum itself. On the one side flowed the Nile, which more than once during the inundation threatened to sweep the whole building away, and the waters of which, on one occasion, actually entered the courtyard; and on the other were a number of warehouses of the flimsiest construction, filled with inflammable stores which might at any moment catch fire and burn down the Museum. In the early winter mornings the building was often full of the white, clinging, drenching mist which is common along the banks of the river, and it was no rare thing to see water trickling down inside the glass cases which held the mummies of the great kings of Egypt. With all its faults, however, there was much to be said for the old Bûlâk Museum, and the arrangement of the antiquities therein. Every important object was numbered, and the excellent catalogue of M. Maspero gave the visitor a great deal of information about the antiquities. Had M. Maspero remained in Egypt he would, no doubt, have added to his catalogue, and every important change in the arrangement of the rooms would have been duly chronicled. After his retire

ment, however, a policy was inaugurated which is difficult. either to understand or describe. The influx of objects during Maspero's reign at Bûlâk was great-so great that it would have been impossible for him to incorporate them all, even if he had had the necessary space; we now know that many of them were exceedingly fine, yet after his departure no attempt was made to exhibit them. This might, in many cases, have been done easily, for poor specimens could have been relegated to the "magazine," and fine ones exhibited in their stead.

With the increase of accommodation for tourists and of facilities for travelling after the occupation of Egypt by the British, public opinion grew and waxed strong, and the advisers of the late Khedive found it necessary to consider the task of the removal of the Egyptian antiquities from Bûlâk to a safer and larger resting-place. The Egyptian Government had no funds at their disposal with which to build a new Museum, and after much discussion it was decided to transfer the antiquities to the large palace at Gizeh, which is said to have cost five millions sterling. The usual irresponsible opposition to the scheme was offered by those who should have known better, but there seems to be little doubt that this decision was the best that could have been arrived at under the circumstances in which the Egyptian Government was placed. The fabric of the Gizeh palace seems to be flimsy, and the appearance of the building is not that which those who are acquainted with European museums are accustomed to associate with Egyptian antiquities; it is, nevertheless, a large building, and the fact that it would cost nothing must have been a great inducement to transform the palace into a museum. Much was said at first about danger to the antiquities from fire, but it is quite certain that the danger from fire at Bûlâk was greater than it is at Gîzeh. Some excellent alterations in the building and arrangements to prevent fire were made