Artefacts of Excavation

In 1888, one of Bordighera’s residents, Clarence Bicknell (1842–1918), built a museum to house his sizable archaeological and botanical collection. Presumably as a British national with a publicly accessed private museum, he was not eligible to receive the patronage of the Italian expeditions. Bicknell was a well-known polymath who, at the time of the distribution of object to his collection, was systematically recording and cataloguing the prehistoric rock engravings of the Vallée des Merveilles. He was also known as a gifted amateur botanist and a vocal participant in the Esperanto language movement. In 1888–89, Bicknell had traveled up the Nile River. Material that was distributed came from the 1906–07 BSAE excavations from Giza and Deir Rifeh and comprised alabaster kohl vessels, a plaster head, ear plugs, amulets, scarabs, balls for a game, and a selection of beads.