Egyptology

Gustavianum is one of two Swedish museums with large Egyptian collections, containing objects from Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Already in the 17^th Century, Uppsala University acquired a small Egyptian figurine through the collection in the Augsburg Art Cabinet, and since then our collection has grown through gifts, especially a donation from the Crown Princess Viktoria around the turn of the last century. Our collection also contain objects from the well-publicized excavations in Nubia, done before the building of the Aussuan Dam. In the collection there are painted mummy caskets, mummies, ceramics and other items of daily use along with a world-class collection of inscribed pottery sherds, called ostraca. The collection is for the most part documented and digitalized. Currently one project specifically targets the ostraca, creating a more detailed documentation and publishing this on-line.

Uppsala University is one of a handful of universities in the world that still teach and do research in Egyptology. There are links to the ostraca project and and other projects that use our collections on the left-hand side of this page.