Uppsala University Museum Gustavianum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have reached an agreement on the return of an ancient Egyptian ceramic child sarcophagus, dated to the 19th Dynasty (1295-1186 BC). The sarcophagus belonged to a boy named Pa-nefer-neb.
Please note: it is not possible to view the sarcophagus in person, but there are still images and two files of moving images below
"It is very gratifying that this return has now come to pass. The child's sarcophagus is an important item in our collections and it means a lot to the museum and the University that it has now been returned to us. The sarcophagus is an excellent complement to our Egyptian collections and will now be available for research," says Mikael Ahlund, Museum Director of Gustavianum, or Uppsala University Museum. "But the sarcophagus needs some work and it will be some time before it can be shown to the public in Gustavianum," he adds.
The sarcophagus was unearthed in Gurob, Egypt in 1920 during an archaeological excavation led by British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie. A photograph of the discovery in situ during the excavation was published in Unseen Images: Archive Photographs in the Petrie Museum (2008), where it was also noted that the sarcophagus was sent to Uppsala when the finds were divided up, a system that allocated ownership of archaeological finds. The Gustavianum archives also contain documents confirming that the Victoria Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Uppsala University, as the collection was then called, acquired the sarcophagus in 1922. It is also documented in the museum's catalogue from the 1950s, but has been missing from the museum since at least 1970.
in 1985, the sarcophagus was purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, USA, from an agent claiming to represent the Swedish artist Eric Ståhl (1918-1999). The documentation presented at the time of purchase now appears to have been falsified. For example, there is a letter allegedly written by Ståhl describing how he excavated the sarcophagus in Amada, Egypt, in 1937. For several years, the MFA published the object online and in printed catalogues with this provenance.
However, curatorial staff at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts discovered that there were inconsistencies between the provenance description of the sarcophagus and the evidence provided by the excavation photograph. The discovery prompted the museum to conduct an in-depth investigation into its acquisition and ownership history. As part of this investigation, the museum contacted colleagues at Gustavianum. The two institutions, through a positive collaboration, exchanged information about the sarcophagus and came to the same conclusion: that it had been taken from Uppsala University's collection without authorisation and should be returned.
"Yes, we are very pleased with the strong collaboration with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and with our colleagues there, which made it possible to bring about the return in a fast and smooth manner," comments Ludmila Werkström, Curator of Gustavianum's historical collections.
The return has now taken place and the sarcophagus is back in the Gustavianum collection.
