08.480.198. Egypt. Incomplete.

I start this presentation by giving you a view of the space my object – let´s call her 𓆦 – witnesses each day. 𓆦 is a necklace made of gold and lapis lazuli, three to three and a half thousand years of age. In the Brooklyn Museum, she is kept with other jewelry behind a glass case in the exhibition “African Ancestors of Egypt and Nubia: From the Green Sahara to the Nile.” Designed to challenge the racist and colonial assumptions of early Western archeologists, this installation focuses on Egypt and Nubia as of Africa – not just in Africa – and proves the excellence of African craftsmanship.

With pendants in the shape of flies, 𓆦 never fails to elicit wonder and surprise among her viewers. Purchased by the museum in 1908 from the collection of Armand de Potter – a Belgian-American who vanished in 1905 under mysterious circumstances – her precise provenance remains to be uncovered. Neither the date nor place of her discovery are known, and by whom is up to speculation. 

Her materiality and symbolism are clues to her cultural context: precious gold and hard-to-come-by lapis lazuli – presumably shipped from distant shores.
The credit line in the Brooklyn Museum mentions the World´s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 – an event to celebrate the “discovery” of America. 

Trade. Exchange. Wealth. Connections.

At the time of 𓆦 making, Egypt´s borders were not drawn along a square with a perfect 90 degree angle in the south-west. Instead, history tells us that Egypt´s Middle Kingdom had declined at the time, and the Nubian Empire stretched between the second and fifth cataracts of the life-giving river Nile. The name of the ancient kingdom of Nubia which now goes by the name of Sudan, is believed to derive from the word “nub,” meaning gold in ancient Egypt. Egypt and Nubia were in constant exchange, ranging from peaceful trade to armed conflict. Nubia sat comfortably in between Egypt and the rest of Africa. Honey, wheat and cloth flowed south on the Nile from Egypt; ebony, leopard skins, ivory and pygmies headed north with Nubia adding gold, frankincense, panther skins, giraffe tails and hippopotamus teeth. Goods were transported by a combination of river boats and caravans that traversed the “short cuts” between the S-shaped loops on the Nile.

The gold used for 𓆦 may come from the rich gold fields of Nubia; lapis lazuli on the other hand was not a material easily obtained in Egypt or Nubia. This required trade with the far-off mountains of the Hindu Kush – present-day Afghanistan – and the source of the same precious stone used to decorate the famous funeral mask of Tutankhamun. Proof that long-distance trade existed thousands of years before merchants travelled along the famous Silk Road, Badakhshan was at the crossroads of trade routes connecting ancient civilizations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Endurance. Excellence. Pride. Honor. Bravery. Gift.

Precisely its irritating persistence and unwavering resolve made the humble fly (called “aff” in Egyptian) an ideal symbol for the bravery, endurance and tenacity valued in soldiers. Fly amulets were worn as homopoeic objects, believed to protect their wearer from insect bites and other irritating creatures through apotropaic magic. They were distinctly v-shaped, emphasizing the head and wings of the insect, and varied in size but most were 2 cm or smaller and could be strung on a single necklace or bracelet, often interspaced by beads.

The ancient Egyptians likely adopted the fly as a symbol of military prowess from their southern neighbors – the Kerma Culture in Nubia – whose kingdom encompassed over two hundred miles of modern-day Sudan. Large fly pendants of ivory and bronze have been found at Buhen, Qai, and Kerma belonging to Kerma “warrior” burials – burials in which the owner also possessed a sword, dagger, or other weapons, indicating a soldiering career.

After the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (which corresponds to the Classic Kerma Period) fly pendants were instated as royal rewards for military achievements in Egypt. Small fly amulets were found in Egypt made of gold, silver, bone, lapis lazuli, faience, carnelian and amethyst. In the Egyptian New Kingdom, fly pendants much larger than their amuletic counterparts, were made exclusively of gold, and given in conjunction with other gold rewards like the “Gold of Honour.”
The Nilotic fly, a symbol of undaunted persistence and unwavering resolve in one Nile Valley culture, became a symbol of royal favor in another.

Nubian warriors were of great significance to their society and well respected beyond its borders. Archers, famed for their skill, find depictions in ancient sculpture and even survived into contemporary popular culture. The Kerma culture of Nubia demonstrated significant military sophistication, evident by archeological findings that reveal an elite class of specialized warriors. Nubian tribes such as the Medjay served as mercenaries in Ancient Egypt, and were sometimes employed as soldiers.
In fact, Kerma warriors are said to have been instrumental in turning the Egyptian state into a military might.

Imperialism. Hegemony. Knowledge. European.

It is thousands of years, generations after generations after generations, before 𓆦 sees the light of day again. Empires rise and fall and Western Imperialism has sunk its fangs into the African continent. We find ourselves in the time of Orientalism, Egyptology, Anthropology and Archeology. Digging into the ground to find the origins of Man, these disciplines were ultimately designed to prove the “superiority” of White men. In the process, Egypt was severed from Africa and sewn onto the increasingly corpulent body of Europe. What lastly advanced and justified Western Imperialism was the conception that a civilization as advanced as Egypt could not be of Africa.
Graves of ancient kings and queens had been uncovered for generations, but only in the second half of the 19^th century did this endeavor turn into a business of its own with huge proportions. Newly founded museums in Europe and America were eager to fill their depots with treasures of the past. The Brooklyn Museum was no exception and began collecting in 1898.

Before finding her resting place in New York in 1908, 𓆦 made an appearance in Chicago at the World Exposition in 1893. There she was placed in section N10 of the Archeology department of the Anthropology building in “The Egyptian Pantheon” of Armand de Potter. The photographs of the expo show tightly packed rooms, cupboards filled with statuettes and vases, vitrines bearing thousands of small objects from the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe.

Business. Lacuna. Science. Universalism.

Reading through the digital version of the expo´s catalogue reveals something peculiar. Other items placed within section N10 include “Japan. Official Exhibit. Collection from the Imperial Museum and the College of Science of Tokyo, Japan” and “K. K. Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum, Vienna, Austria. Archeological specimens from Austria.”

Why was 𓆦 – “**Necklace in gold; its pendant with butterfly (sic) in lapis-lazuli, and little gold flies” with the number 208 – as described in De Potter´s Egyptian Pantheon, placed among exhibits from Japan, Austria, and France?
And which “archeological specimens from Austria” are we dealing with?

Touching base with the former K. K. Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum in Vienna – now the Natural History Museum – revealed correspondences between Chicago and Vienna about the exchange of collections:

“After careful consideration, it was decided to assemble a collection of approximately 1150 objects (…) from the stock of casts of remarkable prehistoric objects, as well as from the non-inventoried duplicate stocks of the ethnographic collection, (…) and to make them available to Chicago free of charge. (…) After spoken and written negotiations with the Director of the Department of Archeology and Ethnology of the exhibition, Mr. F.W. Putnam, and his Chief Assistant, Dr. Francis Boas, the aforementioned gentlemen intend to assemble an equivalent collection of ethnographic objects from the Indians and Eskimos of the northwest coast of North America and Alaska as a return gift, and to donate it to the K. K. Hofmuseum of Natural History free of charge after the end of the aforementioned exhibition.”

Clearly, Vienna was desperate to fill a critical gap in its depots with objects from indigenous peoples of North America – of which it previously only had “a meagre collection.”
What crossed the ocean to be exhibited together with 𓆦 at the Chicago World Exposition and ultimately remain in Chicago continues to be a mystery as a list detailing the objects has not been found. However, scrolling through the online collection of the Fields Museum of Chicago – where most of the anthropological materials ended up after the fair – reveals thousands of objects of non-European origin accessioned through exchange from the K. K. Naturhistorisches Museum precisely in 1893.
Are these the archeological specimens from Austria mentioned in the catalogue?
And what does it tell us about the intent of the exhibition?
The necklace being placed among objects from Japan, Austria and France would indicate a “Europeanization” of Egypt, on par with Egyptology at the time. The placement of the “Egyptian Pantheon” among the many accessioned objects of African heritage however situates the necklace within an African context.

It would be a clear case of presentism should one afford to the organizers of the Expo in Chicago the insightfulness of present curators – eager to counteract the harmful narrative of Egypt´s separation from the rest of Africa – but we are left wondering what narrative were the exhibitors after? 

Wealth. Future. Debt.

In 2014 the life of Armand de Potter became the basis for a detective story, written by his great-granddaughter Joanna Scott. “De Potter´s Grand Tour” is based on Armand´s wife Aimée de Potter´s diaries and seeks to unravel the mystery behind his disappearance. Although it´s a fictional account, the book holds many clues to how De Potter acquired his collection and provides insights into the thriving (illegal) trade with ancient artefacts.
The final decades of the 19^th century witnessed an explosion of trade with Egyptian antiquities as museums around the globe were desperate to acquire some of the bounty buried in the ground. Naturally, forgeries were abound and De Potter´s collection was no exception. As early as 1853 a decree by Muhammad Ali had forbidden the export of Egyptian antiquities and ruled that all antiquities found during excavations were instead to go to the National Museum. Albeit, at a fixed price which could easily be beaten by eager foreign collectors. 

Having founded a purportedly lucrative travel agency for luxury world tours in the mid-1800s, Armand De Potter used his repeated travels to Egypt to add to his growing collection of antiquities. Up until – and indirectly after – their (temporary) arrest by the Egyptian authorities in 1881, the Abd-er-Rasoul brothers were De Potter´s primary source. Looted from Deir-el-Bahari, part of their bounty ended up in De Potter´s collection, including possibly 𓆦. After 1881, De Potter turned to the German egyptologist Emil Brugsch, who himself was working with the Abd-er-Rasoul brothers who had continued their business much as before.

After his disappearance from a passenger ship off the coast of Greece in 1905 – which Scott attributes to suicide – De Potter´s widow petitioned the Brooklyn Museum to acquire the collection. The University Museum in Philadelphia, which had kept the collection after the Chicago Expo were either unwilling or unable to purchase it permanently.
Letters from the archive of the Brooklyn Museum provide insight into the bargaining taking place between Aimée and the museum:
“I can say at once I cannot accept quite as low a figure as $ 2300.”
The lastest sum named in correspondences is $ 2.800, which would amount to roughly $ 100.000 in the present.

Writing in the 1960s, the famed American egyptologist John D. Cooney, who is credited with building the “noted” Egyptian collection at the Brooklyn museum, denigrated the acquisition:

“Despite its size the collection contained no outstanding pieces though it did include several interesting items, a few fine bronzes, and a showy coffin and sarcophagus from the famous second find of burials of the priests of Amen at Deir el Bahri. (…) Certainly it was no great loss to Philadelphia and a doubtful gain to Brooklyn. But taste and knowledge have advanced since that date. Perhaps the chief interest of the De Potter Collection today, still intact in Brooklyn, is a record of what Egyptian pieces appealed to an American collector at the end of the last century.”

It´s clear from this quote that Cooney did not consider De Potter an expert in the field, rather an eager dilettante who squandered his money on “showy” objects with no scientific value. Beside Cooney´s obvious snobbery, it is telling though that De Potter kept no record to where his many objects were from. Even the catalogue he carefully prepared for the Chicago Exposition in 1893 contained no mention of their origins.  

Africa. History. Artifact. Beauty.

In Brooklyn, 𓆦 was exhibited in “Egypt Reborn. Art for Eternity”, “Ancient Egyptian Art” and “Africa Fashion,” before taking her place in “African Ancestors of Egypt and Nubia.”

When imagining the future 𓆦, current political circumstances are difficult to ignore. Little more than a month ago, the Sudanese National Museum was destroyed as a civil war rages in Sudan. What included the pillaging of ancient tombs and the illegal export of cultural artifacts in the 19^th century, continues to this day through the destabilization of entire regions in Africa.
Western Imperialism has left its indelible mark.

As the meanings assigned to 𓆦 and her significance for individuals and societies continue to change, her golden flies will keep on buzzing – until one day, they may too return to the earth.