This guest blog is by Lina Elhage-Mensching, Research Associate at Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony.

This blog post is both a result and a demonstration of the valuable cooperation between the British Library and the Göttingen Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament project, of which the DFG-funded project Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary is a satellite project.[i] I wish to dedicate it to Mrs Ilana Tahan, who sadly passed away and whose contribution was key to the showcase presented in what follows.

The start of the readings from the Holy Week Lectionary, beginning with the passage for early Holy Monday, comprised of a reading from the "Torah of Moses" corresponding to the beginning of Genesis. (Holy Week Lectionary. Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, 990 AM/1273 CE. Add MS 5997, f 31r)

The showcase presents a manuscript that is preserved at the British Library in London under the shelfmark Add MS 5997.[ii] The manuscript under discussion was the primary source used by Oswald H.E. Burmester[iii] in his study of the structure of the Book of the Holy Pascha, i.e. the Holy Week lectionary used by the Coptic Orthodox Church.[iv] In particular, in volumes one and two of his Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte[v], O.H.E. Burmester (1897–1977) collated a total of 21 manuscripts, of which two are Sahidic and nineteen are Bohairic. As he noted, he published the text of the oldest dated Holy Week lectionary[vi] and gave a Concordance Table at the end of his edition with a comprehensive list of all readings derived from the various manuscripts he had studied in his work.[vii] On the ba­sis of his collation, Burmester indicates that, in consideration of the omissions and additions observed in the manu­scripts, the lectionaries could be divided into three categories. The first category comprises fifteen collated manuscripts that belong to the ‘normal type,’ and correspond to the current service of the Coptic Church. The second category is represented by two manuscripts that lack many pericopes of the Old Testament, which led Burmester to suppose that they mirrored the service before the revision by Peter of Behnesā.[viii] The third category is represented by four manuscripts with many additional readings for the day hours’ services, which Burmester assumed to be ar­ranged following Peter of Behnesā’s revision.[ix] The manuscript described in this showcase belongs to the second category.

A folio from the Lectionary featuring passages from the Gospels of Luke and John, as well as a strip from a Syriac manuscript used as a patch. (Holy Week Lectionary. Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, 990 AM/1273 CE. Add MS 5997, f 254r)

A Coptic Holy Week lectionary covers all the days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. During the course of Holy Week, each day is divided into ten hours, with five designated as ‘Hours of the Day’ and five as ‘Hours of the Eve’. The readings for each period are drawn from both the Old and New Testaments. Some Hours comprise more readings than others and extracts from homilies. Moreover, the Psalter in its entirety is recited on Holy Friday whereas the odes of the Old and the New Testament, the book of Revelation, and the Gospel according to John are read in full at various moments on Holy Saturday.[x] The Holy Week lectionary at issue is a bilingual Bohairic­–Arabic paper codex entitled كتاب البصخه المقدسه (The Book of the Holy Pascha), in Arabic only. Originating from Wādī Naṭrūn in Lower Egypt, it is dated to 22nd Toth, 990 AM = 19th September 1273 CE,[xi] The codex consists of 315 folios, measuring 247 x 342 mm each, and featuring a text in two columns of about 25 lines per column. The paper is most probably of local provenance with no watermarks. The parallel Bohairic and Arabic texts are liturgical readings, hymns and prayers for the period between the first Hour of the Eve of Palm Sunday and the first Hour of the Eve of Easter Monday. This lectionary follows the sequence of five Canonical Hours[xii] of the Eve (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th Hour) and five Canonical Hours of the Day itself (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th Hour) for every day of the Holy Week. There is also a 12th Hour on Holy Friday commemorating the entombment of Christ. The readings are pericopes from the Old Testament –the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the Poetry and Wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Wisdom, Sirach), the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel), the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Malachi)– and from the New Testament, i.e., the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul (1Corinthians, 2Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1Timothy Hebrews), and 1Peter. There are no homilies in this Holy Week lectionary.[xiii]

You will find a brief overview of the characteristics of this codex on the Catalog of the Holy Week Lectionary Bohairic website.

The codex structure can be viewed in the Göttingen Virtual Manuscript Room.

A semi-diplomatic edition of the complete codex can be viewed in the VMR workspace.

Since Burmester’s pioneering work, two dated Holy Week lectionaries from an earlier period have been identified. However, one is written entirely in Arabic, and only 26 fragmentary folios of the other survive. Although the manuscript Add MS 5997 preserved at the British Library is not the oldest extant dated Coptic Holy Week lectionary, it is the oldest complete bilingual one. It is therefore highly valuable for the study and research history of Coptic liturgical manuscripts, which is why it was chosen for the showcase.

Lina Elhage-Mensching
Research Associate, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, currently working on the project ‘Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary.’

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[i] The manuscript presented in this blog post is one of the most important manuscripts studied in the framework of the DFG (German Research Foundation) project (DFG n° 491266891 ) at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, with the title ‘Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary,’ launched in 2022.

[ii] See W.E. Crum, Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the British Museum. London, 1905, 513–514.

[iii] From 1945 onwards, O.H.E. Burmester added the attribute 'KHS' to his surname, signing his name as 'O.H.E. KHS-Burmester'. 'KHS' is an abbreviation of Χατζής, a Greek title given to Christians who had undertaken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. See also note 5 by E. Hammerschmidt in KHS-Burmester, Oswald Hugh Ewart, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Part 1: Die Handschriftenfragmente der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg . Wiesbaden, 1975.

[iv] This manuscript is one of those studied within the framework of the DFG-funded project entitled 'Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary', which was launched at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony in 2022. See https://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/web/digital-edition-of-the-coptic-holy-week-lectionary/project.

[v] O.H.E. Burmester, Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte : Texte Copte édité avec traduction française par E. Porcher après le manuscrit Add. 5997 du British Museum (2 vols.; PO 24.2 and 25.2; Paris : Firmin-Didot, 1933/1939), 1.173–294, 2.179–470. The same year O.H.E. Burmester was awarded his Ph.D. degree in Philosophy by the University of Cambridge with a thesis titled Bohairic pericopae of Wisdom and Sirach & Coptic Church Offices . For more information on Burmester’s vita, see “In Memoriam O.H.E. Khs-Burmester (1897–1977),” in Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte 23 (1976–1978), [1].

[vi] Dating back to 1273 AD. While it is indeed the oldest extant complete and dated Bohairic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary, there are two other and older witnesses of the Holy Week Lectionary of the Coptic Church. The oldest one is a fragmentary manuscript written in Bohairic with a colophon dated AM 880 = AD 1164 and is kept at the National Library of Greece in Athens under shelfmark EBE 3550/Δ. The second oldest extant Holy Week lectionary is a monolingual Arabic lectionary with a colophon dated AM 900 = AD 1184 and is kept at the Monastery of St Antony in Egypt under shelf-mark Taqs 260.

[vii] See Burmester, Lectionnaire, II, 476–85.

[viii] For more information about the revision by Peter of Behnesa, see Burmester, “A Coptic Lectionary Poem (from Ms. 408, Coptic Museum, Cairo)”, in Le Muséon 43, 1930, 375–385.

[ix] See Burmester, Lectionnaire, I, 175.

[x] See D. Atanassova “Neue Erkenntnisse bei der Erforschung der Sahidischen Quellen für die Paschawoche,” in Egypt and the Christian Orient. Peter Nagel zum 80. Geburtstag , Texte und Studien zu Koptischen Bibel 1, eds. H. Behlmer, U. Pietruschka, F. Feder. Wiesbaden, 2018, 1­–37, 1 and 25.

[xi] Colophon on page <315v>.

[xii] According to the tradition of the Coptic Church, in an effort to “introduce some uniformi­ty in the services,” the first Coptic Holy Week lectionary was composed by Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turaik (1131–1146), in the first half of the 12 ^th century. See Burmester, “The Canons of Gabriel Ibn Turaik, LXX Patriarch of Alexandria” in OCP 1 (1935), 5–45.

[xiii] A clear indication that this lectionary precedes the revision by Bishop Peter of Behnesā, who added lessons and homilies to the lectionary of the Coptic Church in the 13 ^th century. See Burmester, Lectionnaire, I, 173; L. Villecourt, “Les observances liturgiques et la discipline du jeûne dans l’Église copte (d’après la Lampe des ténèbres, chap. XVI–XIX),” in Le Muséon 37 (1924), 201–280, 260.

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra or the Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines is one of the earliest works of Mahayana Buddhism and the earliest of the Perfection of Wisdom cycle. It probably originated in South and South-Central India, about the 2nd century CE. The Ashtasahasrika consists of 32 chapters, but in the centuries that followed its composition, it was both expanded - up to 100,000 sections - and contracted down to a few brief verses, and finally into one syllable (“A”).

The Buddha,12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 1v

The Ashtasahasrika was the first philosophical text to be translated from the Mahayana literature into Chinese. It was also translated into Tibetan, first around 850 CE and then again in 1020, and was subsequently compared with many Indian manuscripts and commentaries and revised in 1030, 1070 and again in 1500 (Conze 1975: xi).

Devi Prajnaparamita, the personification of wisdom, seated in Padmasana holding a book, 12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 2v

The manuscript copies of this text found in India are among the oldest of the Mahayana scriptures and they typically feature miniatures depicting buddhas, bodhisattvas, goddesses, wrathful divinities, and the eight great events in the life of Gautama the Buddha. However, these illustrations are not related to the text itself (Losty 1982: 20). The miniatures are usually placed at the beginning, in the middle (beginning of the 12th chapter), and at the end of the text.

The British Library holds some early manuscript copies of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita. One of the earliest copies is Or. 6902, written in Kutila script on palm leaf. It was copied in c. 970, at the monastery of Vikramashila (modern day Bihar). Vikramshila was a monastic university founded by King Dharmapala (c. 781-821) to teach the doctrine of the Prajnaparamita, but was destroyed, along with other Buddhist monasteries, at the end of the 12th century, by the forces of Muhammad of Ghor.

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on palm leaf, Bodhisattva Manjusri, Vikramshila, c. 970 CE, British Library, Or. 6902, f. 336v

Another copy, Or. 12461, also in Kutila script, is written on talipot leaves. It can be dated to the late Pala period in the middle of the12th century and was copied at a monastery other than Nalanda or Vikramshila. It is heavily illustrated and misses a few folios. The miniatures in this copy have a complex arrangement, with the usual placement being combined with another cycle of miniatures. Also, the selection of divinities and their pairing within the overall scheme is unclear, perhaps suggesting a single enormous Mandala (Losty 1982:33).

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on talipot leaf, White Tara, Eastern India or Nepal, 12th century. British Library, Or.12461, f. 192v

A third copy, Or. 14203 is in proto-Bengali script and was written in the 12-13th century. There is a mixture of Indian and Nepalese elements in this manuscript. The script is an example of the transition from the Siddhamatrka script of the Bihar monasteries and the Bengali hand (Zwalf 1985: 117).

The Ashtasahasrika discusses the nature of Buddhahood, Bodhisattvahood, and of Wisdom. Like the Lalitavistara and other Mahayana sutras, the topics in this text are expounded in two versions: prose and verse. The verses are earlier and in what could be termed ‘Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit’, while the prose is generally in Sanskrit (Conze 1967: 168-9). The verse section is preserved under the name Ratnaguna (Prajnaparamita-Ratnaguna-samcaya-gatha) which consists of 302 “verses on the Perfection of Wisdom which is the Storehouse of Precious Virtues”. 

The original text of the Ratnaguna seems to have been lost, and the existing composition, has been rearranged or divided into chapters by Haribhadra, the great expert on the Perfection of Wisdom, in the 8th century. Therefore, its historical and chronological aspects cannot be easily determined as we cannot be certain if Haribhadra added, omitted, or altered occasional verses. Unfortunately, the Chinese translators also missed the original text and produced a translation of Haribhadra’s revision in 1001 CE (Conze 1967: 168-9). The 41 verses of the first two chapters of the Ratnaguna may well go back to 100 B.C. They constitute the original Prajnaparamita and all the other versions seem to be their elaborations. These chapters form one single text held together by the constant recurrence of the verse “and that is the practice of wisdom, the highest perfection” (Conze 1975: x).

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Lantsa script on indigo paper, Prajnaparamita Devi and a bodhisattva, probably Avalokiteshvara, Nepal, 12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 2v

Like other Mahayana sutras, the Ashtasahasrika is in form of dialogues between the Buddha Shakyamuni, three of his best disciples, and others such as Indra, the king of gods, and the Goddess of the Ganges. The three disciples - Subhuti, Shariputra, Ananda - are technically known as ‘auditors’ (shravaka) because they have heard the doctrine directly from the Buddha. The dialogues present the teachings on emptiness and describe the path and practices a bodhisattva should take to realise it.

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in proto-Bengali script on palm leaf, the bodhisattva Lokanatha with Varada-mudra, Eastern India and Nepal, 12-13th century. British Library, Or. 14203, f. 14r

In these dialogues, what is said is just as important as who says it:

Where Subhuti, “the foremost of those who dwell in peace”, talks, it is the Buddha himself who speaks through him. He was one of “the eighty great disciples” of the tradition of the Elders (Theravadins) who was distinguished for his practice of friendliness or loving-kindness and for understanding emptiness. In older Buddhism, loving-kindness (maitri) was a minor virtue, but in Mahayana it is revered to the point where its embodiment, Subhuti, is placed above all the other disciples.

Shariputra had been for the Elders the first of those highly mastered in Wisdom. Wisdom, a term for “Abhidharma” (meaning higher doctrine), grew among the followers of the Buddha three centuries after his death. Abhidharma is a system of meditation that analyses and classifies all the processes and events in the conditioned world which could affect salvation. In the Mahayana tradition, however, Shariputra is portrayed as being blind to the One Ultimate Truth, and unable to get away from his preoccupation with multiplicity and dualities. He is no longer the “second Buddha” of the older tradition.

Ananda, known as “the treasurer of the Dharma”, was the Buddha’s personal attendant for thirty years. He was well known for his devotion to the Buddha and had heard all the Buddha’s discourses. He was also famous for his sharp memory, and was said to have been able to take in 60,000 lines uttered by the Buddha, without missing a single syllable.

In addition to these three disciples, we have Purna, Maitreya, the coming Buddha, and Shakra, the chief of gods, each speaking on different topics. The sutra starts in the traditional way: “Thus have I heard at one time”- “I” here is Ananda who is believed to have recited also this sutra shortly after the Buddha’s Nirvana. (Conze 1975: xii-xiv)

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on talipot leaf, Sarvanivarana-Vishkambhin, Eastern India and Nepal, 12th century. British Library, Or.12461, f. 250v

Like many Mahayana texts, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita emphasises that the phenomenal world does not really exist, even the perfection of wisdom does not exist, as it is immeasurable, eternal, and without end. The passage compares it with space: just as space has no measure, no duration, no end, similarly, the perfection of wisdom has no measure, no duration, no end. (Bronkhorst 2009: 120)

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Kutila script on palm leaf, the Buddha with hands in the dharmachakra-mudra seated with his two disciples, Vikramshila, c. 970 CE. British Library, Or. 6902, f. 1v

The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, written in Sanskrit in Lantsa script on indigo paper, the Buddha and a figure holding a vina (the musical instrument) with blue lotus on either side, Nepal,12-13th century. British Library, Or. 2202, f. 1v

The bodhisattva Sarvanivarana-Vishkambhin, Eastern India,12th century. British Library, Or.12461, f. 250v

Bibliography
British Museum. Dept. of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts. Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the British Museum. London: British Museum, 1902.
Conze, Edward. Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies: Selected Essays by Edward Conze. Oxford: Cassirer; London: Faber, 1967.
Conze, Edward. The Perfection of Wisdom in eight thousand lines, and its verse summary. Four Seasons Foundation, 1975.
Losty, Jeremiah P. The Art of the Book in India. London: British Library, 1982.
Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2009.
Zwalf, W. Buddhism: Art and Faith. London: British Museum Publications for the Trustees of the British Museum and the British Library Board, 1985.

Azadeh Sokouhi, Sanskrit cataloguer

 

Have you visited the British Library’s current family exhibition Story Explorers: A Journey through Imaginary Worlds (19 May 2025- 18 January 2026) and wondered why is there an ancient Egyptian funerary slab from 2000 BC in the Library?  

Almost twenty years ago, in 2006, the British Library received the Talbot Collection as a major gift from Mrs. Petronella and Janet Burnett-Brown. Petronella’s late husband Anthony was the great-great grandson of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77), who was the British inventory of photography. Janet was Anthony's sister and together they managed the Talbot photographic collection and archive at their home at Lacock Abbey until the early 2000s.

The Talbot Collection included an extensive archive of Talbot's correspondence, notebooks, negatives and photographs, alongside scientific instruments and other ephemera that illustrated the breadth of Talbot’s cultural and scientific interests and achievements. Talbot's interests were in fields as diverse as mathematics, botany, astronomy and the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform. In additional to the manuscript and photographic component of this collection, there is a group of ancient Egyptian funerary objects—including shabti figurines and stelae – which are now viewed the oldest items in the British Library.  

A late 11th to early 12th Dynasty (c.2000 BC) Egyptian funerary stela for the highly-born woman Imaw (or Iamu). British Library, Talbot Stela 11. Rectangular limestone stela, some remaining red pigment, measuring 51.6cm (width) x 48.3cm (height) x 8.8cm (depth). Acceptance in Lieu of Inheritance Tax, 2006. Gift of Petronella Burnett-Brown and Janet Burnett-Brown.

Last spring, our doctoral placement student Grace Exley, had the opportunity to research the object histories and provenance of the twenty-six Egyptian funerary objects that were once collected by Talbot. Grace undertook extensive archival research at the Library, consulting Talbot’s archive, auction catalogues, and key academic sources. She prepared detailed catalogue records and provided a helpful summary: 

William Henry Fox Talbot had a long-standing interest in ancient cultures, publishing multiple books on classical and antiquarian subjects. He was especially interested in translating ancient languages, particularly Assyrian, which is perhaps the best known of his antiquarian interests. However, Talbot was initially interested in Egyptian hieroglyphics, even sending them to his mother and half-sister as translation challenges. He was well-connected to a number of Egyptologists, including Karl Lepsius (1810-1884), Samuel Birch (1813-1885), and William John Bankes (1786-1855). He even met the famed Italian strongman and explorer of the tomb of Seti I, Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823) in 1820.  

Where Talbot acquired his Egyptian collection is unclear. It seems he grew the collection by acquiring pieces over time from various sources. For example, it seems Talbot’s cousin Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890) tried to find Egyptian antiquities for Talbot on his trip to Egypt in 1827 (British Library, Add MS 88942/2/117). Talbot was also aware of various auctions of antiquarian material, such as the 1836 sale of James Burton Junior’s Egyptian collection in London (as illustrated by a letter sent to Talbot, Add MS 88942/8/76). It is therefore likely that Talbot acquired his Egyptian objects over an extended period, supported by the one reference Talbot made to purchasing Egyptian artefacts in his pocketbook for 1836-1837. Talbot wrote that he had purchased a hieroglyphic manuscript and a hieroglyphic tablet (p.18), followed by three more hieroglyphic tablets (p.19). These references are within Talbot’s accounts, and the brief details mean that it is impossible to tie these entries to specific stelae. The hieroglyphic manuscript was sold at auction in the 1980s, along with other items from Talbot’s Egyptian collection. 

Of the twenty-six Egyptian objects that are now at the British Library, we selected one of the stela to be featured in the Story Explorers exhibition. With the exhibition team Nicola Pomeroy, Mariam de Haan and Stephen Nicholls wishing to feature a range of Library objects to demonstrate the vast range of material types held in the collections (not just books!), we brought to their attention the Egyptian collection. In the gallery, the stela is featured alongside an early 20th century Javanese shadow puppet and an educational shellac record from the Talking Book Corporation that featured man made vocalisations of foxes! 

The selected stela is the largest in size held in The British Library. Rectangular in shape, it is cut out of limestone with some pigments still visible in the relief. It dates to the late 11th to early 12th Dynasty (c.2000 BC). It was prepared for the highly-born woman iAm-Hqt, Imaw (or Iamu), with two registers incised in sunken relief. The five lines of hieroglyphics in the upper register give the deceased's titles, 'the sole royal ornament, priestess of Hathor', and ask not only for commodities (bread, beer, oxen, geese, alabaster, and linen) in thousands, but also a good burial in her tomb in the necropolis of the Western desert.

Detail showing the visible residue of pigments in the relief. British Library, Talbot Stela 11.

The lower left part of the stela shows the deceased, Xkrt-nswt watt Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAm-Hqt, in two mirror images. She wears a long, close-fitting dress with a wide collar and straps, as well as a wig decorated with curls, and both mirror images hold long, spear-headed sticks or staffs. On the right are two other figures, one male and one female. The female is likely Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAmit and the male, whose arms are outstretched, is unnamed and wears a kilt in late Old Kingdom to early Heracleopolitan style. There is one column of hieroglyphics in the lower left corner of the slab, which seems to be a continuation of the five horizontal lines of text, reading: "for the revered one before the great god iAm-Hqt".

Detail of Xkrt-nswt watt Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAm-Hqt, in two mirror images. British Library, Talbot Stela 11.

During Talbot's lifetime and in subsequent years, the Egyptian collection was on display throughout his home at Lacock Abbey, in Wiltshire. Talbot used objects found in his home for his photography experiments and even photographed this particular stela, as cited by Grace in her research. The photographic print, a salted paper print, can be viewed on the Talbot Catalogue Raisonne Project website. 

Until the 20th century, the Talbot family owned Lacock Abbey and the surrounding village of Lacock and it was his descendant Matilda Talbot (1871-1958) who presented the village and the home to the care of the National Trust in 1944. Anthony and his family would live at Lacock from 1971 through the 2000s.

Talbot's collection of photographs, archives and objects were formally presented to the British Library in 2006 by the family of Anthony Burnett-Brown. Until last year, a selection of the Egyptian items remained on display at the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock and were brought to the Library for permanent storage. For researchers wishing to consult the collection, Talbot's manuscripts can be consulted in the Manuscripts Reading Room while the photographs and objects in the Print Room (located inside the Asia and Africa Reading Room). For researchers wishing to consult the collection, appointments can be made by sending an email to [email protected]. 

Grace Exley and the Visual Arts Team

Further reading and information:

 

Featured in Talbot photographic collections. Schaaf nos: 5031 and 3685.

 

Record of Talbot purchasing stelae and a manuscript:

Talbot pocketbook, 1836-7. British Library Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/5/1/26, pp.18-19.

 

Correspondence with Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot regarding the purchase of Egyptian artefacts:

Talbot, C.R.M. 1827. Letter to W.H.F. Talbot. 12th June. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/2/117

 

Talbot, C.R.M. 1827. Letter to W.H.F. Talbot. 18th November. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/8/76 [This letter also contains a reference to the death of Henry Salt (1780-1827), whose Egyptian collection was sold in London in June, 1835.]

 

Correspondence mentioning the sale of James Burton’s collection of antiquities:

Lambert, A.B. 1836. Letter to W.H.F. Talbot. 14th July. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/8/76.

 

Talbot’s meeting with Belzoni was mentioned in a letter to his step-father:

Talbot, W.H.F. 1820. Letter to Charles Feilding. August 20th. British Library, Fox Talbot Manuscript Collection, Add MS 88942/2/38