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| Established | 1827 |
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| Location | Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada |
The Niagara Falls Museum, in Niagara Falls, Ontario, was founded by Thomas Barnett in 1827. After a number of moves and varying fortunes it closed in 1998. The museum is known for housing the mummy of Ramesses I for 140 years before its return to Egypt in 2003.
Barnett opened the museum in 1827 at the base of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. [1] Before this, he had retrofitted a former brewery to exhibit the private collection. [1] Although Barnett was aware of the collection patterns of his North American contemporaries, his approach resembled the British tradition like the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (the first traditional museum in Britain). The museum was moved to a new building in 1937. [1]
The museum initially contained Barnett's cabinet of taxidermic curiosities. Although the details were not documented, the collection was probably a number of mounted animals of local origin combined with Native Canadian artifacts. An account of the museum's contents before 1844 said that it had over 5,000 items, including bipeds, quadrupeds, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, shells, minerals, and Native American curiosities. [2] During the first fifty years of its existence, the museum acquired similar artifacts through the efforts of the Barnett family and their associates.
In 1854, Barnett's son Sydney went to Egypt three times (twice by himself and once with a Dr. J. Douglas of Montreal) and purchased four mummies and other Egyptian antiquities. [1] In 1857, mastodon remains were discovered in St. Thomas, Ontario and later placed in the museum. In 1859, an inventory of the museum's contents included an egg collection, ancient and modern coins, and Japanese and Chinese relics. Visitor numbers fell after one of the museum's employees was such by the son of neighbouring hotel owner Saul Davis in 1970. [1]
Sydney Barnett organized a Wild West Show and Grand Buffalo Hunt in 1872. He contacted Buffalo Bill Cody to find lasso men, and gathered over 100 Pottawatomie Indians for a buffalo hunt. Problems arose when the United States government would not allow the Indians off the reservation. The show was then changed, with General Custer's scout "Wild Bill" Hickok as master of ceremonies assisted by local Woodland Indians from the Tuscarora and Cayuga nations. [3] The following year, the Barnetts purchased the remains of a 40-foot humpback-whale skeleton. Both Barnetts were accomplished taxidermists, preparing specimens for the museum and for sale to other institutions.
Barnett went bankrupt in 1878 at which point the museum and its contents were purchased by Saul Davis in 1878. [4] [1] Four years later, the Niagara Parks Commission was formed to convert the waterfront to present-day Queen Victoria Park. The museum had to be relocated, but a suitable location could not be found and it was moved back to Niagara Falls in 1888. In 1891, an art gallery was established. Several more Egyptian mummies and the entire collection of the Wood's Museum of Chicago were purchased. There were documented exchanges of artifacts and specimens between the museum and P.T. Barnum.
In 1892, the museum's living display ended because of complaints by area residents about noise and odors. A number of artifacts displayed in Buffalo at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition had been acquired by the museum. A giant Sequoia tree, reportedly felled on the Eel River in Humboldt County, California on February 14, 1893, was a highlight of the exposition's Forestry Building. At 77 feet (23 m) in circumference, it was one of the largest trees ever cut down. The museum also received a shell and coral collection gathered by Louis Agassiz of Harvard University.
Thomas Barnett died in 1890 in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the founder of Canada's oldest museum. In 1942 the museum was purchased by Jacob Sherman who in 1958 moved it to Niagara Falls, Ontario where it remained until it closed in 1998. [1] The museum's collection was owned by the Sherman family until May 1999, when it was purchased by private collector William Jamieson of Toronto in the hope of reviving Barnett's tradition. [5]
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The museum returned mummies to Zahi Hawass of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Saul Davis purchased the museum in 1878, and introduced an art gallery. The museum was moved to the American side of Niagara Falls, moving back to the Canadian side when the US parks authority took possession of the land on which it stood.
The Sherman family sold the museum's collection in 1999 to Canadian collector Billy Jamieson, a dealer of tribal art. The Niagara Falls History Museum acquired part of the museum collection in 2014; this included Skipper, Barnett's beloved two-legged dog.
In 1999, Jamieson sold the Egyptian artifacts in the museum's collection (including some mummies) to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. These included an unidentified male mummy. Through research and collaboration with medical experts at the Emory University School of Medicine, museum scholars identified the mummy as Pharaoh Ramesses I. The museum returned the mummy to Egypt in 2003 as a gesture of goodwill and international cultural cooperation. [6] [7]
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum, located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world. It houses over 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display. Located in Tahrir Square in a building built in 1901, it is the largest museum in Africa. Among its masterpieces are Pharaoh Tutankhamun's treasure, including its iconic gold burial mask, widely considered one of the best-known works of art in the world and a prominent symbol of ancient Egypt.
Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert and the Upper Nile Valley.
Menpehtyre Ramesses I was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the timeline of late 1292–1290 BC is frequently cited as well as 1295–1294 BC. While Ramesses I was the founder of the 19th Dynasty, his brief reign mainly serves to mark the transition between the reign of Horemheb, who had stabilized Egypt in the late 18th Dynasty, and the rule of the powerful pharaohs of his own dynasty, in particular his son Seti I, and grandson Ramesses II.
The New Kingdom, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, was the ancient Egyptian nation between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. This period of ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. Through radiocarbon dating, the establishment of the New Kingdom has been placed between 1570 BC and 1544 BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was the most prosperous time for the Egyptian people and marked the peak of Egypt's power.
Usermaatre Sekheperenre Ramesses V was the fourth pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and was the son of Ramesses IV and Duatentopet. His mummy is now on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.
Ramesses VI Nebmaatre-Meryamun was the fifth ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt. He reigned for about eight years in the mid-to-late 12th century BC and was a son of Ramesses III and queen Iset Ta-Hemdjert. As a prince, he was known as Ramesses Amunherkhepeshef and held the titles of royal scribe and cavalry general. He was succeeded by his son, Ramesses VII Itamun, whom he had fathered with queen Nubkhesbed.
Luxor Museum is an archaeological museum in Luxor, Egypt. It stands on the corniche, overlooking the east bank of the River Nile.
The Royal Cache, technically known as TT320, is an Ancient Egyptian tomb located next to Deir el-Bahari, in the Theban Necropolis, opposite the modern city of Luxor.
Tomb KV1, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, was used for the burial of Pharaoh Ramesses VII of the Twentieth Dynasty. Although it has been open since antiquity, it was only properly investigated and cleared by Edwin Brock in 1984 and 1985. The single corridor tomb is located in Luxor's West Bank, and is small in comparison to other tombs of the Twentieth Dynasty.
The Michael C. Carlos Museum is an art museum located in Atlanta on the historic quadrangle of Emory University's main campus. The Carlos Museum has the largest ancient art collections in the Southeast, including objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East, Africa and the ancient Americas. The collections are housed in a Michael Graves designed building which is open to the public.
The Table Rock Welcome Centre is a retail and observation complex located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada at the brink of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, several hundred feet south of the former rock formation which bears its name. The complex consists of two buildings connected by an indoor pedestrian mall and anchored by "The Grand Hall", a multi-level indoor observation complex, completed in 2008.
Thomas Barnett was a museum proprietor, collector and innkeeper who managed museums and other tourist attractions in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Barnett was born near Birmingham, England and moved to Canada in the 1820s.
Exhibitions of artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun have been held at museums in several countries, notably the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, Japan, and France.
Ramesses II, commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt's most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate.
Bird Kingdom is an aviary in the tourist district of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Opened in May 2003, it is the largest free flying indoor aviary in the world. The attraction encompasses approximately 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2), and houses over 350 birds, the majority of which come from Australia, South America, and Africa. It is also home to mammals, reptiles and amphibians which are part of educational programs. Bird Kingdom has been voted a top family attraction in Niagara Falls and was inducted into the Trip Advisor Hall of Fame in 2016.
Queen Victoria Park is the main parkland located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada opposite the American and Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Established by the Niagara Falls Park Act in 1885 and opened in 1888, the park is operated by the Niagara Parks Commission and is considered the centerpiece of the Niagara Falls recreational tourist area.
The Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre is a department of the Louvre that is responsible for artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century. The collection, comprising over 50,000 pieces, is among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.
The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) is a large museum located in Old Cairo, a district of Cairo, Egypt. Partially opened in 2017, the museum was officially inaugurated on 3 April 2021 by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with the moving of 22 mummies, including 18 kings and four queens, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo, in an event termed the Pharaohs' Golden Parade. The museum displays a collection of 50,000 artifacts, presenting the Egyptian civilization from prehistoric times to the present day.
William Jamieson was a Canadian treasure and antique dealer and reality TV star. Jamieson was also known as the Headhunter. He was the star of History Channel's Treasure Trader. He was also a world-famous dealer of tribal art, described as having "a taste for the bizarre", and as "Indiana Jones meets Gene Simmons". He was also described as a treasure hunter who "is Indiana Jones, minus the rolling boulders, aliens and savage tribesmen".
Sahar Saleem is a professor of radiology at Cairo University where she specialises in paleoradiology, the use of radiology to study mummies. She discovered the knife wound in the throat of Ramesses III, which was most likely the cause of his death.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)An ancient Egyptian mummy thought to be that of Pharaoh Ramses I has returned home after more than 140 years in North American museums.
A 3,000-year-old mummy that many scholars believe is ancient Egypt's King Ramses I is the star attraction of an exhibit at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta that will run from April 26 to September 14.
