Gift of Amulets
A collection of 55 Egyptian amulets ranging from 4,000 to 6,000 years in age have been given to Dartmouth College by Mrs. Maribel Pratt of New York and were placed on permanent exhibit in the reference room of the Baker Library October 11. This collection, according to Egyptologists, is the only complete collection of Egyptian amulets in existence. It includes a representative of every type of Egyptian amulet that has ever been discovered.
The collection was given to Mrs. Pratt in Cairo in 1910 by a man who had spent a lifetime in collecting the amulets and who, in failing health, wished them to go to America. They were subsequently exhibited for two years in the Metropolitan Museum. They have since been in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Pratt. Mrs. Pratt is the wife of Elon G. Pratt, '06.
Estimates of the value of the collection range up to $100,000.
The amulets are exhibited in an ebony case modeled to represent the entrance to the Temple of Karnak. They range in size from a quarter of an inch to two inches. They are cut in hard stone and were carried as talismans upon the persons of their owners. Each amulet represents the particular deity of its possessor and they offer examples of various kinds of animal worship. They were buried with the bodies of their possessors after death and they have been discovered with the mummies upon excavation of Egyptian tombs.
