volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

326 Maspero's Patriarchal Policy.
characteristic good sense and kindness, obtained a grant
of money for the widow, and took over all the forged
antiquities for the Egyptian Museum. He described them
as " most instructive and informing."^
But to return to my visits to Egypt. My acquisition
of the Aristotle papyrus and the Herodas papyrus, to
say nothing of the papyrus of Ani and the Tall al-
'Amarnah tablets, stirred up great general interest in
excavations in Egypt. As there was reason for assuming
that other literary treasures still remained in that country,
I was instructed to set out for Eg5rpt early in October,
1892, and to arrange with the dealers for a regular supply
of Egyptian and Coptic antiquities, and to acquire
Greek and Coptic papyri and manuscript^ of all kinds.
When I arrived in Egypt I was cordially welcomed
by all the native dealers, and I found one and all very
willing to enter into negotiations with the Trustees.
They had discovered during the four previous years
that the prices at which I had agreed to recommend
their collections for purchase to the Trustees were paid
to them without any deduction for " commission," and
that there was no middleman to be paid by them in any
shape or form. Moreover, they were all greatly impressed
by the fact that the Trustees not only could and did buy
collections of Egyptian antiquities annually, but that
they had sufficient funds at their disposal to buy all
kinds of antiquities, Egyptian, Coptic, Greek, Roman,
etc. The result of this was that they showed me everything
that they had then in their possession, and they
promised to let me see whatever came into their hands,
and they did so for many years, and behaved well to
^ This is a very good example of Maspero's " patriarchal " policy
in dealing with the natives. He got possession of a collection of
forgeries for which the dealers would willingly have paid good prices,
and kept them out of the antiquity market, and at the same time
gained a reputation for treating the natives with kindness and
generosity. In a similar way, when Beato, the eminent photographer,
died at Luxor, Maspero acquired all his negatives at a reasonable price,
and stored them in the Egyptian Museum. These negatives are most
valuable, for they show us the sites and monuments of Upper Egypt
and Nubia as they were in the "seventies " and "eighties."