Stable URL: https://pnm.uni-mainz.de/4/info/Preface and acknowledgme...

Preface and acknowledgments

It was Sergej Saprykin, chair of the Department of Ancient History at Lomonosov Moscow State University, who first proposed to prepare my complete dataset for publication after I completed my PhD in 2011. The enterprise seemed unfeasible at first (even more so, as the original proposal was to publish the catalogue as a book, with hieroglyphic transcriptions or photographs of each object). Yet the idea lingered in my mind, and eventually, I found that making the database publicly accessible is not only possible, but also necessary step.

The lifework of Oleg D. Berlev on Middle Kingdom society has always been the greatest inspiration for me ever since I started studying Egyptology (sadly, two years after Berlev's death). The present dataset owes much in form and substance to his slip index catalogues of Middle Kingdom persons, titles, and monuments, kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg after his death.

The project in its present stage is generously funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and carried out at the Division of Egyptology of the Department of Ancient Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. I am most grateful to all my colleagues here in Mainz for friendly support and the perfect research atmosphere. I should like to especially thank the project research assistants Svenja Stern and Pascal Siesenop and interns Anissa Zoubir and Mostafa Shaker as well as the university Data Center.

I am grateful to colleagues working on other digital Egyptological projects, open for cooperation and providing useful information. In particular, my thanks go to the Strukturen und Transformationen des Wortschatzes der ägyptischen Sprache (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities) for providing the raw data on Egyptian personal names and titles from the TLA, to the Trismegistos project (The Catholic University of Leuven) for consulting me on the possible inclusion of parts of my data in the Trismegistos, and to the THOT project.

Museums and archives

Such an undertaking would be utterly impossible without access to unpublished materials granted to me at various times by numerous museums and archives. I send my immense thanks to (in the alphabetical order of locations)

AberdeenUniversity MuseumsLouise Wilkie
AthensNational Archaeological MuseumMaria Lagogianni and Konstantinos Nikolentzos
BarcelonaMuseu Egipci de BarcelonaLuis Manuel Gonzálvez
BerlinÄgyptisches Museum und PapyrussammlungFriederike Seyfried, Klaus Finneiser, and Jana Helmbold-Doyé
Beverly HillsCalifornia Museum of Ancient ArtJerome Berman
BristolBristol Museum and Art GalleryLisa Graves
CairoEgyptian MuseumLotfy Abdel Hamid, Eman Amin, Marwa Abdel Razek, and the entire Registration, Collections Management, and Documentation Department
CambridgeMuseum of Archaeology and Anthropology Imogen Gunn and Annie McKay
ChicagoField MuseumLauren Hancock
ChicagoOriental Institute MuseumJohn Larson, Susan Allison, and Emily Teeter
DurhamOriental MuseumRachel Barclay and Ashleigh Sheppard
EdinburghNational Museums ScotlandMargaret Maitlandand Daniel Potter
FlorenceEgyptian MuseumMaria Cristina Guidotti
FribourgUniversity of Fribourg, BIBEL+ORIENT MuseumLeonardo Pajarola and Andreas Dorn
GenevaMuseum of Art and HistoryMarie-Laure Monney
GlasgowGlasgow Life/Glasgow Museums, The Burrell Collection Winnie Tyrrell
HanoverKestner MuseumChristian Loeben
HildesheimRoemer-Pelizaeus MuseumChristian Bayer and Regine Schulz
JerusalemIsrael MuseumShirly Ben-Dor Evian
JerusalemRockefeller Archaeological MuseumAlegre Savariego
KarlsruheBadisches LandesmuseumKatarina Horst
KirkleesDewsbury Museum, Kirklees Museums and GalleriesKatina Bill
KrakówNational MuseumAgata Ralska
LeedsLeeds Museums and GalleriesKatherine Baxter
LeipzigÄgyptisches Museum — Georg SteindorffDietrich Raue, Nadine Zschach, and Susi Bergmann
LiverpoolWorld MuseumAshley Cooke
LiverpoolThe Garstang Museum of ArchaeologyElle DeSpretter, Daniel Potter, and Hannah Godfrey
LondonBritish Museumthe entire staff at the Study Room for the Ancient Egypt and Sudan
LondonThe Egypt Exploration SocietyCarl Graves
LondonUCL Petrie MuseumPia Edqvist, Stephen Quirke, and Alice Stevenson
LundKulturhistoriska föreningen för södra SverigeViveca Ohlsson
LyonMusée des Beaux-ArtsGeneviève Galliano and Henrique Simoes
ManchesterThe Manchester MuseumCampbell Price
MarseilleMusée d’Archéologie MéditerranéenneGisèle Piérini
MoscowThe Pushkin State Museum of Fine ArtsOlga Vassilieva
MunichStaatliches Museum Ägyptischer KunstSylvia Schoske, Nathalie Skotnik, and Jan Dahms
New YorkBrooklyn MuseumEdward Bleiberg, Yekaterina Barbash, Kathy Zurek-Doule, and Sandy Wallace
New YorkMetropolitan Museum of ArtJanice Kamrin
New YorkStaten Island MuseumAudrey Malachowsky
NottinghamNottingham City Museums & GalleriesAnn Inscker
OxfordAshmolean MuseumLiam McNamara
OxfordGriffith Institute ArchiveCat Warsi, Francisco Bosch-Puche, Melissa Downing, and Vincent Razanajao
ParisCentre Wladimir Golénischeff Laurent Coulon
ParisMusée du LouvreGuillemette Andreu, Vincent Rondot, Patricia Rigault, Sophie Labbé-Toutée, Audrey Viger, and Catherine Bridonneau
PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and AnthropologyJennifer Wegner and Jean Walker
PittsburghCarnegie Museum of Natural HistoryDeborah G. Harding
PragueNáprstek MuseumPavel Onderka
ReadingReading Museum & Town HallJill Greenaway
St. PetersburgInstitute of Oriental ManuscriptsIvan Bogdanov and Svetlana Shevelchinskaya
San AntonioSan Antonio Museum of ArtJessica Powers
StrasbourgThe National and University LibraryDaniel Bornemann
TorontoRoyal Ontario MuseumCheryl Copson and Chris Grzymski
ToulouseMusée Georges-LabitRodolphe Carreras
TübingenEgyptian Collection, The University of TübingenSusanne Beck
TurinMuseo EgizioSimon Connor, Federica Facchetti, and Paolo Del Vesco
VaticanMusei VaticaniMario Cappozzo
ViennaMuseum of Art HistoryMichaela Hüttner
ZagrebArchaeological Museum Igor Uranić
and to all other people who kindly helped to host my research visits and handle my research requests.

Many colleagues have provided valuable feedback and corrections to the published versions of this database. I should like to thank Erhart Graefe, Cecilia Benavente Vicente, Bieke Janssens, Tom Hardwick, Fred Vink, Timofey Shmakov, Christian Knoblauch, Marie-Nahid Massoumipour, Carlos Gracia Zamacona, and Tobias Konrad.

Mainz, 1 August 2023