The antiquities path : from the Sale Room of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, through dealers, to private and public collections : a work in progress

Notes, letters and photographs related to Egyptian antiquities that found their way into public or private collections, or whose location is unknown at present, are housed in the Loret, Quibell, Varille and Bothmer archives preserved in the Universit\ue0 degli Studi di Milano. A research project on these objects, now scattered around the world, started with the examination of the copy of some pages of the register of the Cairo Museum Sale Room. Most likely opened at the end of 1892 (even if official sales of objects took place since around 1883), it was active until 1979.This register provides the photographs,a short description, and the names of the buyers of items that were judged saleable, as \u201cduplicates\u201d of objects already present in the Collection. Combining information from archives and museums it is now possible to follow the path of numerous objects: of some of them, we can identify the owner(s), and eventually find out where they are kept at present; of others, sold to public museums, it is possible to establish the original provenance and trace their way from the ancient sites to the Cairo Museum Sale Room, and then to antiquities dealers, auctions, different owners, up to their final location