The iron entry gate decorated with Nile plant-based elements, and the architecture of the room itself featuring a high frame with cyma moulding and two imposing papyrus-shaped columns, introduce the visitor to the pharaonic world and offer important evidence of the museum’s first nineteenth-century layout.
In the centre of this first room, dedicated to epigraphic remains, there is a fragmented statue of Ramesses II enthroned, engraved with the sovereign’s cartouches.
The works are displayed on the walls in chronological order, starting from the Old Kingdom to the left of the entrance. Two interesting false door funerary stelae dates from the Old Kingdom.
Among these there is a limestone wall fragment depicting a scene set in a grove of reeds, which had previously been incorrectly dated from the Old Kingdom. The relief instead dates from the so-called “Saite Renaissance” (Dynasty XXVI), a moment in which models from the most ancient ages were revisited, and may have originated from the Theban Tomb 34 of Mentuemhat, one of the most imposing tombs of West Thebes, in the area of Assasif.
The room also houses a large and interesting commemorative stele, in which Queen Hatshepsut (Dynasty XVIII) is accompanied by her nephew, the future Thutmose III.
The Naophorus statue of Udjahorresnet, depicted with a long engraved tunic, is the most important historical document in the collection. The text dates from the era of the Persian conquest of Egypt, invaded by Cambyses in 525 B.C.
Inscriptions from Christian Egypt are also preserved in the room, and conclude the itinerary at the right of the entrance.