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Our Dark Materials: Rediscovering an Egyptian Collection

Chauncey Murch

(1856-1907)

Reverend Chauncey Murch was Director of the American Presbyterian Mission at Luxor, Egypt, for around 25 years. An antiquarian, collector, and middleman in the trade, he supplied Egyptian antiquities to museums and assisted private collectors during their time in Egypt. Jane Stanford and Bertha Berner met Murch and his family in Luxor in 1901, staying with them again in 1904. Murch served as a personal guide and helped Stanford select and aquire antiquities for the Stanford Museum. Murch later corresponded with Stanford. He served as an intermediary in her Egyptian collecting, introducing her to Émile Brugsch.

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(1861-1945)
Bertha Berner was Jane Stanford's long-time private secretary and companion. She joined Stanford on her two trips to Egypt, in 1901 and the winter of 1903/1904, and can be seen in surviving photographs of the journey. Berner's journal provides some details of the party's time in Egypt. In 1935, she published a biography of Jane Stanford titled Mrs. Leland Stanford: An Intimate Account, which also describes their travels in Egypt. For example, she recounts Stanford's enthusiasm for visiting the famous sites and the assistance Chauncey Murch provided as a guide and in selecting antiquities for the University Museum.
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1. Chauncey Murch
  (1856-1907)
  Reverend Chauncey Murch was Director of the American Presbyterian Mission at Luxor, Egypt, for around 25 years. An antiquarian, collector, and middleman in the trade, he supplied Egyptian antiquities to museums and assisted private collectors during their time in Egypt. Jane Stanford and Bertha Berner met Murch and his family in Luxor in 1901, staying with them again in 1904. Murch served as a personal guide and helped Stanford select and aquire antiquities for the Stanford Museum. Murch later corresponded with Stanford. He served as an intermediary in her Egyptian collecting, introducing her to Émile Brugsch.
2. Jane Lathrop Stanford
  (1828-1905)
  Jane Stanford supported her son Leland Stanford Jr.'s interest in archaeology and antiquities during his life and continued collecting in his memory after his death at the age of fifteen. When her husband, Leland Stanford, was alive, they both acquired and donated items from Egypt and other places for the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum. Her work continued after her husband's death, taking her on two trips to Egypt to network with dealers and acquire antiquities in person. Stanford's personal secretary, Bertha Berner, joined her for both trips: the first in 1901, the second in the winter of 1903/1904. Stanford worked closely with Harry Peterson, the first curator of the university's museum.
(1842-1930)
The Egyptologist Émile Brugsch served as assistant curator of the Boulaq Museum in Luxor, Egypt, under Gaston Maspero. Brugsch later became Director of the museum, which eventually moved to Cairo to form the core collection of the current Egyptian Museum. Brugsch's older brother, Heinrich Brugsch, was the more prominent Egyptologist. Émile Brugsch had been a saloon keeper in America, among other pursuits; his photographic skill was perhaps more relevant to his new profession in Egypt. He is known for his role as middleman between foreign collectors and Cairo-based dealers and museums with antiquities to sell. It is this role that connects him to Stanford: Émile Brugsch liaised between Jane Stanford and N. D. Kyticas and selected the antiquities included in that sale. Stanford may have met Brugsch through their mutual acquaintance, Chauncey Murch. Brugsch also sold her some of his wife's Egyptian collection. Brugsch was granted the honorific "Bey" by the government of Ottoman Egypt, an association so strong it is treated as part of his name in some of Stanford's records.
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1. Jane Lathrop Stanford
  (1828-1905)
  Jane Stanford supported her son Leland Stanford Jr.'s interest in archaeology and antiquities during his life and continued collecting in his memory after his death at the age of fifteen. When her husband, Leland Stanford, was alive, they both acquired and donated items from Egypt and other places for the Leland Stanford Junior Memorial University Museum. Her work continued after her husband's death, taking her on two trips to Egypt to network with dealers and acquire antiquities in person. Stanford's personal secretary, Bertha Berner, joined her for both trips: the first in 1901, the second in the winter of 1903/1904. Stanford worked closely with Harry Peterson, the first curator of the university's museum.
2. Heinrich Ferdinand Karl Brugsch
  (1827-1894)
  Heinrich Brugsch was a prominent early Egyptologist and linguist. He did pioneering work on the translation of hieroglyphic and Demotic languages and is considered a founder of the field of Egyptology. Through his influence, Heinrich Brugsch secured a curatorial appointment at the Boulaq Museum for his younger brother Émile Brugsch, despite the latter's lack of experience. Jane Stanford's future brother-in-law David Hewes met Heinrich Brugsch during his 1877 honeymoon in Egypt, when Brugsch advised Hewes and first wife Matilda Hewes on their collecting. Their souvenirs were eventually bequeathed to Stanford University by Hewes' second wife, Anna Hewes.
3. N. D. Kyticas N. D. Kyticas has not been identified. However, other members of the Kyticas family were known antiquities dealers in Cairo. Panayotis Kyticas was a well-connected Greek antiquities dealer operating in Cairo, Egypt during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He specialized in Greek and Roman period Egyptian items. Kyticas's shop was advantageously located next to the famous Shepheard's Hotel and operating as early as 1879. His son Denis Panayotis Kyticas took over his father's business when Panayotis died in 1924. Émile Brugsch served as an intermediary between Kyticas and Jane Stanford. Stanford's Kyticas collection was authenticated in 1901 by Gaston Maspero, who judged it to be “worthy to be exhibited in any Museum of Europe or America." In 1917, Archibald Sayce also pronounced it a fine collection, although unfortunately seriously damaged by the 1906 earthquake.
4. Chauncey Murch
  (1856-1907)
  Reverend Chauncey Murch was Director of the American Presbyterian Mission at Luxor, Egypt, for around 25 years. An antiquarian, collector, and middleman in the trade, he supplied Egyptian antiquities to museums and assisted private collectors during their time in Egypt. Jane Stanford and Bertha Berner met Murch and his family in Luxor in 1901, staying with them again in 1904. Murch served as a personal guide and helped Stanford select and aquire antiquities for the Stanford Museum. Murch later corresponded with Stanford. He served as an intermediary in her Egyptian collecting, introducing her to Émile Brugsch.
5. Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
  (1846-1916)
  Gaston Maspero was among the most powerful figures in early Egyptology. He served as Director of the Egyptian Museum, where Émile Brugsch was his assistant curator. He eventually became Director of the Antiquities Service, authorizing excavations by Bernard Grenfell, Arthur Hunt, William Petrie, Henri Naville, and many others. He also found time to write an encyclopedic history of Egyptian civilization, edited by linguist Archibald Sayce. He was known for his exceptional understanding of ancient Egyptian language and writing, as well as for his efforts to weaken the illegal trade in Egyptian antiquities. In 1901, Maspero authenticated the Stanford Museum's N. D. Kyticas collection, which Jane Stanford had purchased in 1901 in Cairo. Maspero judged them to be "worthy to be exhibited in any Museum of Europe or America."
6. Mrs. Émile Brugsch Mrs. Émile Brugsch was married to one of the most active figures in turn of the century Egyptology. She spent time in Egypt with her husband and was part of the scholarly social scene there, appearing in an 1881 travelogue as a party guest on a dahabeah (boat) on the Nile. She reportedly left Brugsch in the late 1890s. They may have repaired their relationship, or Émile Brugsch may have been a crafty salesman, as he wrote to Jane Stanford in 1901 that his wife "does not want to keep on buying, prices have gone up so high, and herself therefore having lost all pleasure." Brugsch sold 273 items from his wife's collection to Jane Lathrop Stanford for the University Museum in 1901. In a 1902 letter to Brugsch, Jane Stanford mentions "the illness" of Mrs. Brugsch and, perhaps knowingly, hopes they will be soon settled together again in their home in Cairo with "the peace of God in their hearts."

(1856-1907)

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(1861-1945)

(1842-1930)

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(1861-1945)