Robert Hay (6 January 1799 – 4 November 1863) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

traveller, antiquarian, and early

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...

. He was born in Duns Castle,

Berwickshire Berwickshire (; ) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. The county takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, its original county town, which was part of Scotland at the ...

. During his service in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

he visited Alexandria, Egypt, in 1818. In 1824 he met Joseph Bonomi in Rome, whom he hired as an artist and who accompanied Hay to Egypt. They stayed in Egypt from November 1824 until 1828, and 1829 to 1834, recording monuments and inscriptions, and making a large number of

architectural plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

s. His manuscripts are now primarily in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, and many of his plaster casts in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. In May 1828 Hay visited

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, where he married Kalitza Psaraki, the daughter of the chief magistrate of Apodhulo,

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

; Hay had earlier rescued her from the

slave market A slave market is a place where slaves are bought and sold. These markets are a key phenomenon in the history of slavery. Asia Central Asia Since antiquity, cities along the Silk road of Central Asia, had been centers of slave trade. In ...

in Alexandria. After his death in

East Lothian East Lothian (; ; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In ...

, Scotland, in 1863, Hay's collection of Egyptian antiquities was sold to the British Museum, though some objects were purchased by the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in 1872.

References

External links

The lost portfolios of Robert Hay
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hay, Robert 1799 births 1863 deaths Scottish antiquarians Scottish Egyptologists Scottish travel writers Scottish sailors People from Duns, Scottish Borders