In August 2003, the Centennial Exhibition in the Cairo Museum was still opened, and I went there. The path goes round the left side of the Museum. And there I was much surprised to see lying on the pebbles the - heavily restored - ! No one seems to care about it, and it is filled with cigarette-ends, and empty bottles of mineral water. The exhibition itself had had no visitor before me that day (it was 4 PM). I found the lightning conditions less than optimal, too dark, making some of the artefacts difficult to see entirely. The artefacts themselves are very well preserved and some of them are outstanding. A very annoying thing was that there was no label for any artefact. When I asked why, I was told that there had been labels at the beginning, but someone said they had to be changed. And the artefacts have now been waiting for months for their new labels, and nobody seems to care about it. So I had to refer to the catalogue, which unfortunately doesn't list all the artefacts. Due to the technical conditions, some of the photographs that you are about to see are not perfect ones. I apologise for that. I also had to make a choice, both technical (for instance I couldn't photograph the now renowned wooden artificial toe) and esthetical, and selected what I felt were the masterpieces of the exhibition.
Do enjoy your visit.
I chose to distinguish this object, an offering tablet for the seven sacred oils. It belonged at a certain Teti-ankh-kem and dates from the beginning of the 6th Dynasty. It was found at Saqqara, in the area of the king Tety cemetery. The object measures 16.5 x 7.7 x 1.5 cm. It includes 7 pots intended to contain the oils, whose names are mentioned above.