One of the Worst Signatures on a Collectable EVAH 0

[Buzzetta]

So last night I went to the Met in Manhattan.  One of the stops we made was to the Egypt display to see the temple of Dendur.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547802 <-- See the temple here. 

As I was looking around, I noticed that there were some contemporary names and dates in the stone that I had not noticed in my previous visit around thirty years ago as a child.  I had an idea what the markings were and asked a few people on the museum staff to have my suspicions confirmed.  I am sharing one of these "signatures".

I noticed a "NY" engraved into the stones and asked about it.  One of the security guards pointed out the name "L BRADI... 1821 of NY" is Luther Bradish, who in 1819, was sent by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to negotiate a treaty with the Ottoman Empire.  While he was in the Middle East he decided to make his mark on the temple and carved his name on it in Egypt.  Bradish would eventually become Lt Governor of NY in 1838.  By 1850 he became President of the New York Historical Society where he was charged with preserving artifacts such as the one he had defaced almost 30 years prior.  The museum staff told me that they investigated the names when the temple was given to the Met in New York in the 1960's.   He stated that if the temple had come to NY during Bradish's tenure that it would have led to the removal of his position as President of the New York Historical Society.   I took a picture to share. 

Keep this mind if you ever start marking up your comic books as a kid and one day want to work for CGC. 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by Buzzetta

[Duffman_Comics]

Wasn't this given to the US in acknowledgement of the effort to rescue and relocate the Abu Simbel temple complex? If so, this would seem to be a case of the Egyptians having very long memories (why wouldn't they, of all people) and a twist on the old retail disclaimer "you break it, you bought it".