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Egyptological Museum SearchThe Egyptological museum search is a PHP tool aimed to facilitate locating the descriptions and images of ancient Egyptian objects in online catalogues of major museums. Online catalogues (ranging from selections of highlights to complete digital inventories) are now offered by almost all major museums holding ancient Egyptian items and have become indispensable in research work. Yet the variety of web interfaces and of search rules may overstrain any person performing many searches in different online catalogues.
Egyptological museum search was made to provide a single search point for finding objects by their inventory numbers in major collections of Egyptian antiquities that have online catalogues. It tries to convert user input into search queries recognised by museums’ websites. (Thus, for example, stela Geneva D 50 is searched as “D 0050,” statue Vienna ÄS 5046 is searched as “AE_INV_5046,” and coffin Turin Suppl. 5217 is searched as “S. 05217.”) The following online catalogues are supported:
| Short name | Full name |
| Berkeley | Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley |
| Bibliotheca Alexandrina | Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum |
| BM | British Museum |
| Bologna | The Archaeological Civic Museum of Bologna |
| Bolton | Bolton Museum |
| Boston | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
| Brooklyn | Brooklyn Museum |
| Bruxelles | Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels |
| Budapest | Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
| Cleveland | The Cleveland Museum of Art |
| Durham | Oriental Museum, Durham University |
| Fitzwilliam | The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge |
| Genève | The Museum of Art and History of the City of Geneva |
| Glasgow Hunterian | Hunterian Museum Archaeology & Ethnography Collections, Glasgow |
| Leiden | National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden (Egyptological museum search can search by both inventory and Leemans numbers) |
| Liverpool WM | World Museum, National Museums Liverpool |
| Los Angeles County Museum | Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
| Louvre | The Louvre, Paris |
| Manchester | The Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester |
| MMA | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
| Philadelphia | The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia |
| Stockholm | Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm |
| Swansea | The Egypt Centre Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Swansea University |
| Torino | Egyptian Museum, Turin |
| UC | The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London |
| Walters | The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
| Washington | National Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian, Washington |
| Wien | The Museum of Art History, Vienna |
The tool can be used in two ways. First, one may use the online search interface. One may select the museum, enter the searched inventory number in the box, and press “Search.” Then the browser is redirected either to the object desription in the online museum catalogue or to a search results page on the museum website. Second, one may send HTTP GET queries to the Egyptological museum search in order to connect it to a one’s own online or offline application by creating query URLs of the following form:
http://static.egyptology.ru/varia/mus.php?museum=(Museum)&no=(Inventory number)
In order to provide compatibility with other databases, which may use different designations of the museums, Egyptological museum search supports a number of aliases. Examples of query URLs:
http://static.egyptology.ru/varia/mus.php?museum=Leyden&no=D 127
http://static.egyptology.ru/varia/mus.php?museum=New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art&no=56.136
http://static.egyptology.ru/varia/mus.php?museum=Turin&no=Suppl. 1287
