‘EX LIBRIS F.LL. GRIFFITH et N.C.C. GRIFFITH 1937’

Abstract

Collecting books throughout his entire career, factors such as library access, location, accommodation, and financial scope determined the growth of the book collection of Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934), which was to become ‘the finest private Egyptological library in existence’. For teaching and research, he, his students, and the team of the Topographical Bibliography project relied on this library, which would ultimately be part of the joint bequest of Francis and Nora Griffith to the University of Oxford. At first accommodated in the Griffith Institute, and since 2001 in the Sackler Library, it remains adjacent to the Ancient Egypt and Sudan collection in the Ashmolean Museum and continues to allow interdisciplinary research thanks to this direct access to relevant library collections. Griffith had already defined these two prerequisites for the study of Egyptology in his Inaugural Lecture in 1901.