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- Giovanni Anastasi
- Also known as
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Giovanni Anastasi
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primary name: Anastasi, Giovanni
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other name: Anastasiou, Giovanni
- Details
- individual; dealer/auction house; collector; Greek; Male
- Life dates
- 1780-1860
- Biography
- Greek merchant settled in Alexandria, Egypt.
His father, originally from Damascus, went to Egypt (about 1797) and established a large business as a purveyor to the French army. The defeat of Napoleon and the evacuation of French troops ruined this business and he died shortly after becoming bankrupt.
Anastasi reestablished the business as a thriving concern and, 1828-1857, served as the Swedish-Norwegian Consul in Egypt. In addition to his commercial activities, Anastasi carried on a large trade in antiquities, buying objects directly from the inhabitants of Saqqara and Thebes. He sold a large collection to the Dutch government in 1828, another was sold in London to The British Museum in 1839, and a third by auction of 1,129 lots in Paris during 1857.
He died in Alexandria on August 6th, 1860. He bequeathed part of his fortune to Swedish charities and a large sarcophagus to the Stockholm Museum. His name is particularly associated with the large number of important papyri from his collections now distributed between Leiden, London and Paris.
- Bibliography
- 'Who was Who in Egyptology', Dawson & Uphill, Third Revised Edition, Ed. Bierbrier, EES, London, 1995.
Chrysikopoulos, V. 2015. A l’aube de l’égyptologie hellénique et de la constitution des collections égyptiennes: Des nouvelles découvertes sur Giovanni d’Anastasi et Tassos Neroutsos, in: Kousoulis, P. (ed.) Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists, Rhodes, 22-29 May (Leuven: Peeters).
