UNKNOWN OLD PHOTOS OF KARNAK MONUMENTS

The article introduces a set of photos capturing monuments and sites of the Karnak Temple Complex (Egypt) in 1907. These visual documents are held in the archival fond of D. Shcherbakivsky, in the Scientific Archive of the Institute of Archaeology, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Together with other visual materials, these photos appear to have been visual illustrations for lecture course on the history of ancient art by D. Shcherbakivsky. Investigation of the archival materials and study of the related textual documents from the Archive give reason to conclude that Ukrainian ethnographer and anthropologist O. Alesho seems to have been the author of these photos. He visited Egypt in winter 1907; Helwan and Luxor were among the sites which he visited, and the survived photos appear to have been a part of the photographic recording of his trip. He sent a postcard to his professor D. Shcherbakivsky with a note from Helwan, this note attests his trip to Egypt. 
At present, the Institute of Archaeology of the NASU has eight black-and-white photographs capturing sites, objects and views of Karnak Temple Complex, as they were in 1907. So the photos of the Institute record one of the earliest known cases of the photographic recording of the Ancient Egypt sites and monuments made by Ukrainian scholars.


Publication of Archaeological Material
Olena O. Romanova * the archives of the restoration workshop in the allUkrainian museum Town (Kyiv). In 1920ies and 1930ies this museum possessed a remarkable collection of ancient Egyptian objects that were photographed in the process of their restoration by m. Kasperovych and his team (Романова 2017, с. 182-197;Romanova 2020). The other set of glass photonegatives comprises reproductions of old photos of Egyptian sites and monuments, collected, evidently, for publication. Both sets of the photonegatives will be discussed in detail in a further publication (Романова, Станиціна 2020). The objective of the present paper is to intro duce a newly found set of photos depicting some monuments of the Karnak Temple Complex 1 . Be ing engaged in the project "ancient Egypt in Kyiv mirrored on glass" whose goal was to catalogue the negatives collection, I was searching for documents that could shed light on the history of the negatives. Investigating other funds of the archive in collabo ration with anna Yanenko, we found these photo graphs.
This series of photos does not seem to be con nected with the abovementioned collection of the photonegatives of Egyptian objects and sites. The photos were apparently made earlier than 1920ies or 1930ies, and they are of excellent quality sug gesting that their author was a skilled photogra pher. The monuments were photographed in situ, which means that somebody from Ukraine traveled to Egypt as early as in 1900ies. These early photos of Karnak and its monuments in situ can be of some interest for Egyptologists.
The photos were a part of the personal archive of the famous Ukrainian archaeologist, the art histo The Scientific archive of the Institute of ar chaeology, the national academy of Sciences of Ukraine, is one of the largest depositories of textual and visual materials on Ukrainian archaeology and history of Ukrainian humanities. It includes an impressive collection of photographic negatives and photos portraying archaeological excavations on the territory of Ukraine starting from the late 1890, as well as series of visual materials on the artefacts stored in Ukrainian museums, and other documents. The archive also has the collection of photographic negatives of ancient Egyptian objects. This collection consists of two parts; the larger set of the photonegatives originates from rian and the fine arts expert Danylo Shcherbakivsky (1877-1927) (Білокінь 2013).
Together with some other photos of asia and middle East monuments, they probably belonged to the visual material that D. Shcherbakivsky used in his lectures. Since the 1910s, D. Shcherbakivsky gave lectures on art and history of art in a number of Kyiv institutions including Kyiv art Institute. Besides, he was a moderator of an art study sem inar at the Taras Shevchenko allUkrainian His torical museum. His personal archive has a draft and working materials for his lectures on the his tory of art; the document named "Lectures on the history of art, methodology of lecturing of the his tory of art, etc. (art of Egypt, Syria, mesopotamia, mycenae etc.)" (Scientific archive of the Insti Scientific archive of the Insti archive of the Insti tute of archaeology, of the naS Ukraine (further Sa Ia naSU), fond no. 9, file no. 185, fol. 1-163 (Щербаківський Б.р., арк. 1-163)). Judging by the archival documents, his course included a series of lectures on ancient Egyptian art; eleven pages of these lectures drafts survived (Sa Ia naSU, fond no. 9, file no. 185, fol. nos. 1-11 (Щербаківський Б.р., арк. 1-11)). The file with the photos of Karnak sites also belongs to this personal archive (Sa Ia naSU, fond no. 9, file no. 150, photos nos. 1-8). These photos were probably used as il lustrations for his lectures, or were a part of the col lection of photos of various cultural sites, monu ments and objects that D. Shcherbakivsky used in his studies of ancient art.
The photos were made in Egypt, but it was un clear, who their author was. D. Shcherbakivsky is unlikely to have made these photos himself as there is no evidence of his trip to Egypt, only to Europe (Білокінь 2013).
On the back of photo no. 5, there is a pen cil inscription saying, "Handed over to Museum by Ol[expander] Alesho" (Sa Ia naSU, fond no. 9, file no. 150, photo 5). The name of the museum mentioned in this inscription can be easily identi fied. From 1910 till his death, D. Shcherbakivsky worked in the same museum, though it was re named several times. He started his activity when it was the Kyiv museum of arts, Industries and Sciences, then it became the First State museum (1918) and later (1924) it was reorganized into the allUkrainian Historical museum named after Taras Shevchenko. The inscription also identifies a person who offered these photos to museum (or to D. Shcherbakivsky).
Olexandr Havrylovych alesho (1890-1922) was a disciple of D. Shcherbakivsky and Ukrainian ethnographer and anthropologist (Толочко 2015, с. 329-330). He could have been the author of the photos, as is evident from his correspondence, he was also a photographer (Алешо 1915, арк Fortunately, there is a document shedding light on the photos' provenance. The photos of Kar nak monuments from Shcherbakivsky's archive come with a postcard depicting an Islamic vase (Sa Ia naSU, fond no. 9, file no. 150, postcard no. 9). This postcard was printed in Cairo; the logo on the backside is in arabic and in French, "Phot. art. G. Lekegian & Co Caire" ("Photographie ar tistique G. Lekegian & Co."). It was a wellknown photo studio of an Ottoman painter and photogra pher Gabriel Lekegian who was of armenian ori gin. His photo atelier was functioning in 1890ies and in 1910s. So, Gabriel Lekegian could have been the author of these photos. However, though his atelier is mentioned on the postcard, but its name cannot be found on any of the photos.
The postcard bears a note written by О. alesho to D. Shcherbakivsky. Here is the Russian text of the note: The word "Helwan" on the dispatch postmark survived only partially, and the date of dispatch is unclear.
The postmark of the place of receipt is visi ble much better: "Uman, 2.2.07." Thus, Helwan was the point of departure of the postcard and it is a document substantiating O. alesho's visit to Egypt in winter 1907. O. alesho mentioned in his postcard a note to another postcard sent by him to D. Shcherbakivsky, and, probably, there were a number of such cards sent from Egypt to Uman. This postcard, together with the abovementioned inscription on the photo, verifies the assumption that O. alesho might have visited Karnak dur ing his trip to Egypt, and could have been the au thor of the photos. It is likely that this small set was a part of a larger set of photos made by him in Egypt.

Photo description
Photo 1. Scene of wallrelief representing re warding of amenhotep, the high priest of amun, by Ramses IX (Karnak, Central Group, Court be tween Seventh and Eight Pylons) (Porter, moss 1972, p. 172).
Photo 2. Two colossal statues with the name of Ramses Iv, one is of Osiridetype and other is as human figure standing, the inscription with the King's names is visible. The colossi were actual ly made by Thuthmose III and later were usurped by Ramses Iv, they are situated in the temple of amun, in front of the north face of Seven Pylon (Porter, moss 1972, p. 168).
Photo 3. avenue of ramheaded sphinxes pro tecting pharaohs, in front of the Great Temple of amun (Karnak, Central Group) (Porter, moss 1972, p. 22), general view. Photo 4. Two registers of the wall relief from the Granite Sanctuary of Philip arrhidaeus, Great Tem ple of amun, Karnak, Central Group (Porter, moss 1972, p. 100 (290)). The upper register represent a row of scenes with King and deities, King purified by Thoth and Horus, and King crowned with a white crown by the same deities, King led by atum and monthu to Thoth. Beneath is a fragment of the low er register showing the images of barks in naoses and a procession of priests carrying the sacral bark.
Photo 5. Two rows of columns and the upper window, the Great Hypostyle Hall of the Great Temple of amun (Karnak, Central Group) (Porter, moss 1972, p. 41ff).
Photo 6. Frontal image of Bes depicted on the wall relief from the Porch of the Temple of mut (Karnak, Southern Group) (Porter, moss 1972, p. 256).
Photo 7. General view of Propylon "Bab el abd" erected by Prolemy III Euergetes I and Prole my Iv Philopator (Karnak, northern Group, Tem ple of monthu) (Porter, moss 1972, p. 2-4). The lower part of the photo has a handwritten inscrip tion made by hand in English: "Entrance of tem ple Karnak, nr. 9. G. Saif." This photo seems to be one of the photographic cards made for tourists.
Photo 8. Statue of lionheaded goddess Sekhmet with a cartouche of Sheshonk I. The details of the in scription are visible on the photo. Inscription incised on the frontside of the chair, left of the legs of the fig ure, says sA Ra n Xt.f mrj Imn ^Snq "The son of Re, from his body, beloved by amon Sheshonk". In the area of the Temple of mut (the Southern Group of the Kar nak Temple Complex), a series of Sekhmet statues were found (Porter, moss 1972, p. 257-258), in par ticular, a statue of Sekhmet erected by amenhotep III and usurped by Sheshonk I, in the forecourt of the Temple of mut (Porter, moss 1972, p. 257). Howev er, the photo depicts another statue of Sekhmet with dedication of Sheshonk I. It is a large granite statue of the seated goddess wearing a crown with uraei and a solar disk above (lost) (Porter, moss 1972, p. 258 (11)); the statue was found and described by m. Ben son and J. Gourlay, the photo of the statue was placed in their monograph on p. 248 (Benson, Gourlay 1899, p. 247, and Pl. XIX on p. 248). The statue cap tured on the photo from the Institute of archaeology of the naSU was represented in situ too; it was taken a bit later, and the photo is of fine quality. The statue on the photo represents a lionheaded female figure seated on the chair, shown from the left. The left and the right arms of the figure are damaged and partially lost as well as the top section of its crown.