Egyptian Collection of the Hermitage Museum

The Egyptian Collection of the Hermitage Museum dates back to 1852 and includes approximately 7,500 items from the Predynastic Period to the 12th century AD.

The Egyptian exposition is hosted in a single large hall on the ground floor on the eastern side of the Winter Palace.

In 1853 the statue of Sekhmet (15th century BC), brought by Alexei Norov from Theban Necropolis of the Eleventh dynasty of Egypt in the 1830s, was moved from the Imperial Academy of Arts to the Hermitage.

Some items were purchased for the museum from antiquities traders in Egypt and collections of Russian merchants or received as gifts.

The Hermitage collection continued to grow in the 1880s, when Coptic written monuments and two fragments of Egyptian water clocks were acquired.