The founding: Gregory XVI and nineteenth-century Egyptomania
In 1822, Jean-François Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone and opened access to reading Egyptian hieroglyphics. The cultural impact was immediate: across Europe, archaeological expeditions to Egypt multiplied and dedicated museums opened.
Pope Gregory XVI had already accumulated a disorganised collection of Egyptian artefacts: mummies, canopic jars, statuettes, pieces from private purchases and Italian excavations. In 1839 he commissioned the systematic arrangement of these collections into a permanent museum, entrusting the scholarly care to the Dominican friar Luigi Maria Ungarelli — one of the few Italian Egyptologists of the era.
The result was the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, opened in the same year on the lower floor of the Courtyard of the Pine Cone, in the spaces built under the pontificate of Pius VI.
Egypt in Rome: the historical context
To understand the Vatican collection, it is necessary to understand why Rome was filled with Egyptian objects. Egypt entered the Roman orbit with Augustus's conquest in 30 BC, after the death of Cleopatra. Rome assimilated the cult of Isis — an Egyptian deity with maternal attributes — which became one of the most widespread cults in the Roman Empire.
With the cult of Isis came obelisks (many of which still stand in Rome), statues of Egyptian deities and ritual objects. Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli (2nd century AD) is the most extreme case: Hadrian had visited Egypt in 130 AD, was profoundly struck by Egyptian civilisation, and in his villa reconstructed buildings inspired by Egyptian sites — including the Canopus, a reproduction of the Alexandria canal. A significant part of the Vatican collection originates from Hadrian's Villa.
The principal works
The Naophorus of Udjahorresnet
The Naophorus of Udjahorresnet (6th–5th century BC) is one of the most important artefacts in the collection. A naophorus is a statue that carries a naos — a small shrine containing the image of a deity. Udjahorresnet was a high Egyptian official who collaborated with the Persian conquerors Cambyses II and Darius I.
The exceptional importance of the piece lies in the autobiographical inscriptions carved over the entire body of the statue: Udjahorresnet describes how he collaborated with the Persians while remaining faithful to Egyptian traditions, defended Egyptian temples from destruction and obtained from Darius I the permission to restore them. It is a historical document and not merely an artistic one: the first-person testimony of a functionary who survived foreign conquest.
The mummies and sarcophagi
The collection includes mummies datable from the New Kingdom to the Graeco-Roman period. The sarcophagi show the evolution of Egyptian funerary material: from the limestone of the 18th Dynasty to the painted cartonnage of the Ptolemaic period. The mummies are preserved in stable conditions and visible to the public.
The canopic jars
Canopic jars (named after the Egyptian village of Canopus) were used to preserve the internal organs of the deceased during mummification. The lid of each jar was modelled as one of the four deities of the Sons of Horus: the baboon (lungs), the jackal (stomach), the falcon (intestine), the human (liver). The Vatican collection preserves a well-documented set.
The shabti figurines
Shabti figurines — small mummiform figures in blue or green faience — were placed in tombs to "answer" in place of the deceased when the deities called him to labour in the afterlife. The Egyptian word shabti means "one who answers." The quality of the faience in the Vatican collection is high: the figures often show the deceased with miniature agricultural tools.
The bronze cats
The cat was sacred to Bastet, the cat-headed goddess, patroness of women and the home. Bronze votive cat figures — often with a pendant at the neck and earrings — were deposited in sanctuaries dedicated to Bastet. The Vatican collection holds several examples from the Late Period (664–332 BC).
The Stele of Iabas
The Stele of Iabas (19th–20th Dynasty, c. 1295–1069 BC) is a biographical text incised on a limestone slab. The deceased describes his life, the offices he held and the virtues that will allow him to pass the Judgment of Osiris. This type of autobiographical stele is fundamental to the understanding of Egyptian funerary culture.
Hadrian's Egypt: the pieces from Hadrian's Villa
When Hadrian visited Egypt in 130 AD, his favourite Antinous drowned in the Nile under circumstances that were never clarified. Hadrian was devastated by the loss: he deified Antinous, founded the city of Antinoopolis in Egypt and filled Hadrian's Villa with Egyptian statues and objects as a perpetual memorial.
Among the pieces of Hadrianic provenance now in the Vatican:
- Statues of Egyptian deities in black basalt
- Decorative fragments with hieroglyphs (not always authentic: some inscriptions were created by Roman craftsmen who copied without understanding)
- Portraits of Antinous in Egyptian style — iconographic hybrids between the Graeco-Roman portrait and Egyptian frontal rigidity
Structure of the museum: the nine rooms
The Gregorian Egyptian Museum is distributed across nine rooms on the lower floor of the Courtyard of the Pine Cone:
- Rooms I–III: large monuments and sculptures, stelae, naophori
- Rooms IV–V: funerary objects, mummies, sarcophagi
- Room VI: canopic jars, amulets, shabtis
- Room VII: artefacts from the Graeco-Roman period of Egypt
- Room VIII: the Assyrian section (historical mixture in the nineteenth-century collection)
- Room IX: materials from Hadrian's Villa
Visiting with a private driver
The Gregorian Egyptian Museum is inside the Vatican Museums — access is the same.
Arrive at the Vatican Museums at opening to visit the Egyptian Museum without crowds: the lower floor rooms are almost always quiet. Service from €49. → Book your driver at myromedriver.com
Frequently asked questions
How many mummies are there in the Gregorian Egyptian Museum? The collection includes several mummies on display, dating mainly to the Graeco-Roman period of Egypt (332 BC–395 AD). It is not a large mummy collection like that of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Is the Naophorus of Udjahorresnet original or a copy? It is an authentic original Egyptian piece from the 5th century BC. The autobiographical inscriptions are among the most complete to survive from the Late Period of ancient Egypt.
Does the museum require a separate ticket? No. It is included in the standard Vatican Museums ticket (€17–21).
Are the Egyptian obelisks of Rome connected to this museum? Not directly. The Roman obelisks (Piazza Navona, Piazza del Popolo, Piazza di San Pietro, etc.) come from Egypt but are managed by the City of Rome, not the Vatican Museums. The Vatican collection contains smaller-scale objects.
Was Champollion involved in founding the museum? Not directly. Champollion died in 1832, seven years before the museum opened. It was his decipherment (1822) that made the scientific interpretation of the collection possible.
Article no. 36 — TIER S — MON-02 Vatican Museums + Sistine Chapel Type: HISTORY Words: ~2,400