The Photonegatives of the Ancient Egypt Collection of the Taras Shevchenko Central Hstorical Museum: Review on the Monography by O. O. Romanova and H. O. Stanytsina. Ancient Egypt in Kyiv: Mirrored on Glass (the Glass Photonegatives Collection of the Scie

Abstract

The article reviews the monograph-catalogue O. O. Romanova and H. O. Stanytsina Ancient Egypt in Kyiv: mirrored on Glass (the Glass Photonegatives Collection of the Scientific Archive of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). This book is dedicated to the introduction into academic circulation of a collection of glass photonegatives depicting ancient Egyptian objects from the Scientific Archive of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. 143 negatives and photographs of ancient Egyptian items were collected; they were published and provided with catalogue data and comments. Significant work has been done on the attribution of objects depicted on the negatives. Noting the importance of visual material introduced, the research part of the monograph, however, contains significant intentional or unintentional lacunae regarding the existing base of Ukrainian researches on the topic. The Egyptological part of the work has also a certain number of completely or partially erroneous attributions and statements and ignores existing academic publications on the subject. The reviewers came to somewhat different conclusions regarding the reason for the formation of the discussed collection of negatives, specified the circumstances, time and place of their creation, differently defined individual ancient Egyptian objects and the provenance of some of them (for example, the “shabti-box” on the photonegatives (now lost) is actually a canopic box). Documents from the Scientific Archive of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine are of great importance for revising the conclusions of the monograph. An excerpt from the inventory book of negatives is published, which demonstrates that the collection was created at the Taras Shevchenko National Historical Museum in the process of preparing an exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts.