In our article about the former poorhouse Centre de la Vieille Charité in the center of Marseille, we reported extensively that today the Egyptian collection of the Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne also contains it.

Like so many in France, this museum is also free to visit. An option that has long been demanded and should be implemented in Germany, if only to serve the education of its citizens.

Small works of art from the 26th Dynasty of Egypt

The Egyptian collection mainly includes small works of art such as amulets, jewelry and bronzes and is considered the most important Egyptian collection in France after the Louvre. The rooms in which the collection is housed are modeled on Egyptian temples. On display are mummified crocodiles and a 5.64 meter long papyrus with an oracle of the dead from the 26th Dynasty. The 26th Dynasty is often referred to in historical research as the time of the Egyptian restoration. The reason for this is that during the reign of this dynasty, the country had a strong and stable state for the last time in antiquity that was able to defend Egypt against its external enemies.

With Assyrian support, a new dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs was able to establish itself in the Nile Delta. This is also known as the Saite dynasty after the name of its capital, Sais. Its founder, Psammetichus I, who ruled as pharaoh from 664 to 610 BC, was appointed Egyptian king by the Assyrians because he was tasked with ensuring peace among the individual Assyrian principalities in the Nile Delta.

The father of the collection was the doctor Antoine Barthélémy Clot

The collection in the Centre de la Vieille Charité goes back largely to the doctor Antoine Barthélémy Clot (1793–1868), who worked in Egypt for a time during the Restoration.

In the history of France, Restoration refers to the period of the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy between the end of the First French Empire and the July Revolution of 1830.

Antoine Barthélémy Clot was a French doctor, also known by his Arabic nickname Clot-Bey.

The Khedive of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, tried to recruit trainers and doctors in France to help modernize the country. On January 21, 1825, Clot also left for Egypt.

Although his contract was originally for five years, he was to stay there until 1849.

After he cured Muhammad Ali of gastroenteritis, Ali appointed him his personal physician and friend.

He introduced variolation to Egypt and cared for patients in Cairo during a devastating cholera epidemic in 1831. His work earned him the honorary title of Bey.

Clot wrote several works on diseases endemic to Egypt, such as cholera (1832), the plague (1840) and various eye diseases (1860).

He described the epidemic prevention measures he introduced (1851, 1864).

Egyptian collections sold to museums

He sold his collection of Egyptian antiquities during his lifetime: in 1852, the Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statuette of Hunefer with the papyrus of Hunefer was auctioned to the British Museum in London, and in 1853 the Louvre acquired a total of 2,687 pieces from Clot-Bey's collection.

A small part of this collection is in the Musée d'Archéologie Méditerranéenne in Marseille.

His collection of stuffed songbirds from Egypt is now in the Naturalis natural history museum in Leiden. In 1850, Charles-Lucien Bonaparte named the cracker lark after him as Ramphocoris clotbey. In 1840 he published a two-volume "General Description of Egypt" based on the Description de l'Égypte.

On June 25, 1834, he was elected a member (registration number 1386) of the Leopoldina Academy of Scholars with the academic nickname Oribasius V.

Leopoldina - learned society based in Halle

The German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina e. V. - National Academy of Sciences, or (Academia) Leopoldina for short, is the oldest scientific and medical learned society in the German-speaking world and the oldest continuously existing natural science academy in the world.

The institution, later named after Emperor Leopold I, was founded in 1652 by Johann Laurentius Bausch as the Academia Naturae Curiosorum (also called Academia Imperialis Leopoldina Naturae Curiosorum) in Schweinfurt and today has the legal status of a registered association.

Today, the institution is financed 80 percent by the federal government and 20 percent by the state of Saxony-Anhalt. 189 members of the Leopoldina have received the Nobel Prize, making it one of the world's largest associations of Nobel Prize winners.

According to its statutes, the Leopoldina has the following tasks, among others: "Its task is to promote science through national and international cooperation, according to its tradition 'for the benefit of mankind and nature'. To this end, it organizes scientific events, sets up commissions and publishes the results obtained. It awards prizes and awards and promotes young scientists.

With its appointment as a National Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina officially takes over the representation of German scientists in the international bodies in which other national academies of sciences are represented, and it is involved in science-based advice to the public and politics."

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