Archaeology Magazine Archive

A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America

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Stamp text: "2/9/19. Via France Switzerland and Italy to EGYPT and PALESTINE authority letter from the British Embassy Washington dated 8/8/19 valid until date of [?]. Stamp: 19, Bedford Square, W.C. Military Permit Office."

From London, Breasted traveled to Paris, where he met colleagues and purchased antiquities. He then took the famous Orient Express train to Venice, where he boarded a ship for the eight-day voyage to Alexandria, Egypt. In Egypt, much of Breasted's attention was devoted to purchasing antiquities. He was competing with representatives of other museums, mostly American. In one case, in pursuit of a bronze statuette of a jackal, he wrote in a letter that he rode "a borrowed bicycle for lack of any other conveyance (for I live in a suburb), and all trains are on strike, I rode as fast as I could to Blanchard's place. I saved the bronze by only a few minutes, for Colonel Samuels, a wealthy British officer, was just about to pay the money."

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