The story of Museo Egizio

Founded in 1824 by King Charles Felix, this is the world's oldest museum devoted entirely to ancient Egyptian culture, and its collection is considered the second most important after the one in Cairo. The story begins with a single object: the Mensa Isiaca, an altar table in imitation of Egyptian style that reached Turin in 1630. It spurred King Charles Emmanuel III to send the botanist Vitaliano Donati to Egypt in 1753, and he returned with 300 pieces.

In 1824 the king acquired the Drovetti collection of 5,268 pieces, and that same year Jean-François Champollion used the Turin papyri to test his breakthroughs in deciphering hieroglyphs. Later the Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli excavated between 1900 and 1920, and in 1906 he found the Tomb of Kha and Merit intact; it was moved as a whole to the museum.

The last major acquisition was the small temple of Ellesiya, a gift from Egypt. In 2024 the museum received 1,036,689 visitors.