Feature: Treasures of the Collection

Treasures of the Collection          

This blog will take a look at some of the more unusual items and collections found in Hewes Library.  When Monmouth College was founded in 1853, many colleges and universities had a room known as a “cabinet” to display items that could be used in the study of various subjects.   Monmouth College’s cabinet was formed in 1863 when a collection of geological specimens was obtained from the state of Illinois, followed by a collection of various materials gathered in Egypt, Syria and Palestine by James Barnett in the course of his work as a missionary.  This collection was added to over the years with material from the local area and foreign regions.  Much of the material was contributed by former students who became Presbyterian missionaries in places like China, India and the Middle East, but it disappeared by the early 20^th century.  While Monmouth College no longer has a Cabinet of unusual objects on display for the purposes of study, we still have many interesting and unusual objects and collections ranging from archaeological treasures to some rare and unusual books about Japan.  This blog will take a look at some of these unusual items and collections that are found in the library.

Today the item of interest is the cast of the Canopus (or Tanis) Stone found on the second floor of the library next to the archives.  This stone was found in Egypt in 1866.  It is similar to its more famous cousin the Rosetta Stone in that the inscriptions found on it were in three languages, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic (a shorthand form of ancient Egyptian) and ancient Greek.  Because Greek could be read but ancient Egyptian could not, the Rosetta and Canopus stones were keys used in deciphering the language.  But how did a cast of this stone come to be at Monmouth College?  Well, in 1871 Dr. Gulian Lansing, a Presbyterian minister based in Egypt who had been with the German expedition that found it, went to the ruler of Egypt and requested a copy of the stone.  The Pasha gave permission for three copies to be made, two for museums in Berlin and London and one for Monmouth College, from which Dr. Lansing had received an honorary degree.  This interesting curiosity was lost for a number of years until it was recognized by a professor in the1950’s when pieces of it were shown to him by a college custodian.  In 1997 it was put on display in the library where it can be seen today.  You can read more about the stone’s interesting history on the signs accompanying the display or in the book “A thousand hearts devotion, a history of Monmouth College”.

Next time, we’ll take a look at one of the more recent donations to the collection.