Via Accademia delle Scienze 6 – Torino

Opening Hours:
Winter: 8:30 a.m. -7:30 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday (January 1st to June 10 and September 10 to December 31st)
Summer: 9:30 a.m. -8:30 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday (June 11 to September 9)

Closing days: on Mondays, January 1st and Christmas day

Official Web Site: www.museoegizio.it

The Egyptian Museum of Turin (the second in the world after the Cairo Museum) was established in 1824, although the University of Turin already owned an important collection of Egyptian material. In the early 19th century, Carlo Felice, influenced by the interest in Egyptian culture which had been spreading all over Europe following Napoleon’s campaigns in Egypt, acquired a substantial number of the finds collected by the Piedmontese Bernardino Drovetti, French consul general in Egypt. Between 1903 and 1920 the Italian Archaeological Mission launched a number of excavation campaigns along the Nile, thus acquiring additional material; new pieces were also added to the museum between 1930 and 1969. In 1988 the museum was entirely renovated.

The Most Important Items

Egizio The Drovetti Collection, original nucleus of the Egyptian Museum, gathers 98 statues, as well as an extraordinary collection of papyri which can be considered as the most important set of Egyptian written documents in the world. Included in the collection are the Royal Papyrus, also known as the Papyrus from Turin, with the list of all the kings from 3,00 to 1,600 BC; paintings from the tomb of It, discovered in 1911, representing religious scenes as well as agricultural and artisan activities; and the extraordinary cloth, discovered in 1930 in a prehistorically tomb at Gebelein, which is the most ancient painted in the world (3,500 BC); it depicts boats, hunting scenes and ritual dances. The Ellesija Temple from Nubia dating back to more than 3,500 years ago, was presented by the Egyptian government to Italy following the works carried out by the Italian mission in removing monuments and temples from the area of the Assuan Dyke. In order to be transported to Italy, it was extracted and then reconstructed in the museum.

The Tomb of Kha

The tomb, discovered in 1906 during the excavation campaign carried out by the Italian archeological mission in Deir el Medina, is the most impressive and remarkable ensemble of the whole museum. Dating back to 3,500 BC, it houses sarcophagi and statues, as well as furniture, garments and grooming items.

Description of the collections

The Egyptian antiquities in the Museum cover all the arc of his history about the periods:
” Upper Paleolithic (from 40000 b.C.)
” Lower Neolithic (from 5000 b.C.)
” Old Kingdom (from 2650 b.C.)
” Middle Kingdom (from 2050 b.C.)
” New Kigdom (from 1550 b.C.)
” Late period (from 1100 b.C.)
” Hellenistic (332 b.C. – 30 a.C.)
” Romanic (30 b.C. – 324 a.C.)
” Byzantine (324 a.C. – 639 a.C.)