As Egyptians, we hear so many stories about museums in Western Europe and the US that have Ancient Egyptian artifacts that were stolen and smuggled during the years that Egyptomania took over Europe (1802-1923). Some examples would be the Rosetta stone in the British Museum, a massive portion of the collections of the Louvre and Vatican Museums and Nefertitti’s bust in Berlin. However there is another country that often flies below everyone’s radar: Austria.
Austria’s colonial and imperial history is often forgotten today as many people simply see a small country in Central Europe, but this small country used to have one the largest empires in world history and at one point ruled: all of South & Central America, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia, Poland, Southern Italy and even the Philippines. During the colonial era it did not possess large colonies, but it held small trading footholds in China, India and Indonesia. All that being said, Austria’s history with Egypt is a bit different.
Vienna, Austria’s Capital, is a city of many museums thanks to its deep history of being an art city. However, two museums stand out because of their international content: the Kunsthistorisches (art history) Museum and the Welt (world) Museum. The Kunsthistorisches museum has a massive collection dedicated to the “Egyptian and Near East”, which houses artifacts from Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Mesopotamia. Its Egyptian collection is our concern; it is a modest collection with only a handful of really interesting items compared to the majestic Grand Egyptian Museum or even the Louvre. Some of the standouts were the statues of Sekhmet, the bust of Thutmose III and the canopic jars. Other than that, the collection mainly houses simple wooden statues, coffins & mummies from queens and basic accessories.
This collection started as something an Austrian Emissary bought from Constantinople in 1560, and it slowly grew as more Austrian consuls and diplomats bought artifacts from the Egyptian government in the 19th century. The Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (an odd story worth looking up) also bought a massive collection known as the Miromar collection, and it is also now part of the museum. Other pieces also come from excavations done by the Austrian government back when the Egyptian Kingdom allowed foreign archeologists to keep their findings. Egypt also gifted the Austrian emperor three massive pillars from Alexandria, that now decorate the halls of the exhibition
The Welt museum’s Egyptian collection is more unique as it is not a collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, rather it is a collection of modern Egyptian trinkets. This collection comes from the Austrian Prince Franz Ferdinand (whose death sparked WWI), who went on a massive tour of the world beginning with Port Said, Ismailia and Suez before going on to Aden, India and many other places. While exploring any destination, he would often buy as many trinkets and souvenirs as he could, and this resulted in a massive multicultural exhibition at the Welt museum. This is one of the most unique Egyptian exhibitions abroad as it's one of the only ones not to focus on the pharoahs.
I hope this sated your curiosity by giving you some weird stories from Central Europe. Overall, while the ways that Austria got these artifacts is not as bloody as France or the UK, we Egyptians must not forget that we should aim to get all our artifacts back no matter who got them.
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