Smith W.S. Ancient Egypt

Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1960. — 140 p.The Present Volume grew out of a scheme to produce an authoritative as well as a useful handbook on the Egyptian collections in the Museum of Fine Arts. Its preparation was entrusted to Dr. Smith, a scholar of distinction, a recognized authority, and, for some years, Dr. Reisner’s first Assistant in the excavations at Giza. Inevitably, the book became more than a handbook, and is really a short history of the development of Egyptian culture and art, well illustrated with pieces in the Museum collections. Each historical period is discussed in general before the section which describes the pertinent material in the Museum. It will be useful to visitors to be sure, but equally useful to the students and teachers of Egyptian history and art.Its appearance at this time is extremely apposite. Coming as it does so soon after the death of Dr. George Andrew Reisner, Curator of Egyptian Art at the Museum, and one of the world’s greatest Egyptologists, its author likes to regard it as a tribute to this great scholar whose indefatigable labors and brilliant research have been the major factor in creating the collection which the Museum houses. Although Dr. Smith will publish shortly a much more exhaustive book on Egyptian sculpture, this one calls especial attention to the collection the Museum owes to Dr. Reisner, and which many regard as not the most extensive but perhaps the most distinguished outside of Cairo.As Director of the Museum, I should like to express my gratitude to certain friends of the Museum who bore the cost of publication. Thanks are due first to Mrs. Charles Gaston Smith and her Group who donated roughly half the required sum. Similar help was received also from Mr. Dows Dunham, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Jackson Holmes, Dr. Francis T. Hunter, Mrs. Gardiner M. Lane, Miss Katharine W. Lane, and Mr. Arthur S. Musgrave. The Museum is deeply appreciative of this assistance at a time when so many demands are made upon every purse.