201 North Beckwith, Box 142, Malden, MO. 63863
573-276-5008 E-Mail
On display at the Malden
Historical Museum is the rare Dennis Collection of Egyptian
Antiquities. What sort of man was James Teackle Dennis, a wealthy,
aristocratic lawyer who left a promising Maryland political career to tramp up
and down the Nile River digging in sand and rock to discover keys to the
mysteries of ancient Egypt? His treasures, the "Dennis Collection," reveal a
man of great discernment and fine taste. His record of independent study at
Johns
Hopkins University reveals a man of staggering intellect, with a voracious
appetite for learning.
Historical research traces Mr. Dennis' family back to Acomas County,
England, in the late 1500s. Mr. Dennis' father was a Maryland Supreme Court
Judge; his grandfather was a Maryland Senator; and one of his great-uncles, in
1800, cast the deciding vote in the House of Representatives which made Thomas
Jefferson the president of the United States. James Dennis himself was born
October 6, 1865, in Baltimore, Maryland, and maintained his home there
throughout all his travels. Following Mr. Dennis' studies at Johns Hopkins he
became associated with the Egypt Exploration Fund, a society based in London.
Through this connection, he went to work in Egypt in 1905 with the
archaeological expedition headed by Dr. Naville of Geneva, Switzerland. He was
hired as the official decipherer of hieroglyphic inscriptions and as artist to
make detailed drawings and diagrams of temples, tombs and other archaeological
features to be studied. Mr. Dennis' detailed drawings, his photographs, and
transcriptions of his decipherings of hieroglyphics are said to have been taken
to Geneva, Switzerland, where they were put into books under the name of
Edouard Naville. During this time, two major finds -- the Shrine of Hathor with
its famed sacred beast and the tomb and mummy of King Mentuhotep III -- were
made by the Naville party and Mr. Dennis played a key role in both. He was made
director on the spot of the excavations in the winter of 1906.
Dennis Collection of Egyptian Antiquities |
In the Mid-40s, about the time interest in the mysteries of ancient Egypt began to stir in the United States, a collection of small pieces from the storied land of pharoahs and pyramids found their way to an unlikely place -- Malden, Missouri. Acquired by Mr. Dennis' nieces, Mary Kochtitsky and Elise Kochtitsky Byrd (who later donated the "Dennis Colleciton" to the Maalden Historical Museum) these artifacts were discovered during an expedition in 1905-07 by Mr. Dennis and make up the Dennis Collection of Egyptian Antiquities. Mr. Dennis died in 1918 at the age of 53 and received very little recognition of his work. Many of his photographs taken and letters composed at the excavation sites are on display at the museum as part of the "Denis Collecitn". |
