George Davis Hornblower

1864–1951

George Davis Hornblower developed his interest in Egyptology during his time in the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior and collected many artefacts during this period. His main interest was in the anthropology and religion of Ancient Egypt, particularly the Predynastic and Early Dynastic period which he wrote fourteen articles on, many of which were published in the journal produced by the Egypt Exploration Society, the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.

In late September 1939 he was admitted to a private hospital in England. Given this and the onset of World War II, he felt that it would be necessary to leave his London home and put his furniture into storage. He had by this point already marked out a number of objects that were intended to go to the Fitzwilliam Museum upon his death but given the circumstances he felt it wise to present them to the museum in 1939. Almost 350 small antiquities were presented to the museum including the limestone relief from Pepy II's temple at Saqqara (E.182.1939) on display in case 3, gallery 20.

Further Reading

Dawson, W. and Uphill, E. (1995) Who Was Who in Egyptology. Third Edition, revised by Bierbrier, M.L., Egyptian Exploration Society, London, p.208

Hornblower, G. D. (1930) 'Funerary Designs on Predynastic Jars' Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 16, 10–18