Relhan Collection : 79 Cambridge. Sarcophagus of Rameses III in the Fitzwilliam Museum

Relhan, Richard, 1782-1844

Relhan Collection

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Benton labels this<b> ‘</b>Egyptian mummy in Fitzwilliam Museum, S side’ but it is a granite sarcophagus lid, dated 1183-1152 BC, showing Rameses III as the mummified god Osiris, supported by goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Cobras with female heads raise their arms in adoration. It was taken from Thebes in the Valley of the Kings by Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823) and given to the Fitzwilliam Museum, where it is displayed in an upright position. The massive sarcophagus was given in 1820, well before the Museum existed as a building. Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion, had travelled and collected widely in Europe before the French Revolution and when he died in 1816 he left all his books, manuscripts and art, plus £100,000 to build a museum, to the University of Cambridge. But it was not until 1848 that a building was ready to receive this and other bequests and donations. They were therefore displayed for many years in a temporary museum that had been the Perse School, on the building that is now the Whipple Museum, the boys being moved elsewhere for rather longer than expected. </p><p>Burn L 2016; Fitzwilliam Museum display description </p></p>