Egypt through a Belgian lens: Jean Capart and the collection of photographic glass plate negatives of the royal museums for art and history in Brussels

Abstract

Under the impetus of a growing interest within the international Egyptological community in the history of its own discipline, many institutions have recently made considerable investments to disclose historical photographic archival collections by digitization efforts. The famous Egyptological library of the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) in Brussels also keeps an important photographic archive of which the large subcollection of almost fourteen thousand historical glass plate photographic negatives were studied in the framework of the SURA project. These photos date from the first half of the 20th century and document the pioneering years of Egyptology in Belgium from the perspective of Jean Capart, founding father of Belgian Egyptology and the first curator of the Egyptian department of the RMAH, and his collaborators.