In conjunction with the 10th anniversary of its opening, an exhibition titled "Egyptian Antiquities" is being held from October 19 at the Kyoto University Museum, in Sakyo Ward, Kyoto. The museum houses the largest Egyptian antiquities collection in Japan. This is the first, full-scale exhibition of the collection which was endowed to the Kyoto Imperial University, now Kyoto University, by the United Kingdom from the Meiji Period to the early Showa Period.

More than 700 of the approximately 1,500 items in the collection, dating from roughly 3,000 B.C. to 600 A.D., are on exhibit. The exhibition includes earthenware and lithographs which were presented by Flinders Petrie, British archaeologist, under whom Kosaku Hamada, the first professor of the Kyoto Imperial University Archaeological Department, studied.

One item, an approximately 4,000 year-old rectangular parallelepiped stone which was excavated at the ruins of Abydos along the upper reaches of the Nile River that contains 46 names in the "Senanku" family line written in hieroglyphs is deemed to be an important artifact in the study of the society at that time. Additionally, sections of a human-shaped wooden coffin of unknown age and ornaments are also on display.

Tomoaki Nakano, associate professor at Chubu University and an expert on Egyptian archaeology, said, "There is no collection in Japan, which covers such a wide range of periods and combines quality and quantity. We can see from this collection that the United Kingdom was very strict in selecting materials to donate to enable students to learn about ancient Egypt." The exhibition will continue until December 18. The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. There is an admission fee for elementary school students or older.