3-017-040 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields: the Sarcophagus-Room, 1864. View of '...the Sepulchral Chamber, in the lower part of the Museum, which contains the splendid ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, discovered by Belzoni in 1817 in a Royal tomb in the valley of Biban el Malook, near Gounou, Thebes. It was bought by Sir John Soane of Mr. Salt, the traveller, in 1824, for the sum of £2000. When first discovered, this sarcophagus was considered by Dr. Young to be the tomb of Psamnis. Recently, on May 10, Mr. Joseph Bonomi, the excellent Curator of the Soane Museum, illustrated to the Syro-Egyptian Society Belzoni's very animated description of the sarcophagus by a section and plan of the catacomb, which is excavated to a depth of one hundred yards into the solid rock. The sarcophagus is completely covered with hieroglyphics...Two subjects of particular interest were pointed out, one as representing the ancient Cosmical philosophy, and the other as exhibiting in a very perfect manner the doctrine of the Metempsychosis...The sarcophagus is formed of a large mass of arragonite. The seventeen fragments which formed part of the cover have recently been put together, under the direction of Mr. Bonomi, and can be inspected in a room above stairs'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.