xiv 
INTRODUCTION. 
Assyrian 
remains. 
Pourtales, 
lilaeas, and 
Castellani 
collections. 
Coins and 
Medals. 
Corns and 
Ornaments. 
These successive acquisitions have made the Museum collection of 
Greek marbles one of the richest in Europe in works of the finest 
art. In sculpture of purely archaic interest it is quite pre-eminent, 
for no other gallery can show works to rival in antiquity and complete- 
ness the wonderful monuments of Assyrian art unearthed by Mr. 
Layard at Kouyunjik, the site of the ancient Nineveh, and at Nim- 
roud. The colossal bulls and long extent of sculptured slabs covered 
with inscriptions which ornamented the palace of Sennacherib, 
the records of Assyrian history inscribed in cuneiform character 
on sun-dried bricks and cylinders, with ivories, bronze vases, and 
numerous other objects, brought together within the Museum walls, 
have been the means of in a great measure restoring the history and 
realizing the grandeur and advanced civilization of an ancient empire, 
the memory of which had been almost lost. 
The great collections of sculpture successively absorbed by the 
Museum were, in the majority of instances, accompanied by other 
monuments of ancient art — as bronzes, fictile vases, coins, gems, and 
gold ornaments ; and these received large additions from the pur- 
chases made at the sale of the celebrated Pourtales collection in 1865 ; 
the acquisition of the Blacas collection in the year 1866 ; and the two 
collections purchased from Mr. Alessandro Castellani in 1872 and 
1873 respectively. These are mostly incorporated in the suite of 
rooms on the first floor. 
As was to be expected from their many-sided interest, the collection 
of coins and medals, from being a small branch of general antiquities, 
has grown to be a department itself. The first considerable acquisitions 
were derived from the general collections of Sir Robert Cotton and 
Sir Hans Sloane. The cabinet of Anglo-Saxon coins of Samuel 
Tyssen was purchased in the year 1805 for £620 ; and this was fol- 
lowed, in 1805 and 1814, by the Townley collection ; in 1810 by that 
of English coins formed by Edward Roberts, of the Exchequer, bought 
by parliamentary vote for <£4,200 ; in the following year by the Greek 
coins of Colonel de Bossett (£800); in 1824 by the coins and medals 
in Richard Pavne-Knight's collection ; in 1833 by the Greek and 
Roman coins of H. P. Borrell, of Smyrna (£1,000); in 1836 by the 
oriental collection bequeathed by William Marsden ; in 1856 by 
Greek and Roman coins from Sir William Temple's collection ; in 
1861 by Mr. De Salis's present of Roman coins of all metals; by 
that of Mr. Edward Wigan of imperial Roman gold coins, in 1864; 
by upwards of 4,000 coins, chiefly Roman gold, from the Blacas 
collection, in 1866 ; and in the same year by the Greek coins be- 
queathed by Mr. James Woodhouse. In 1872, the sum of £10,000 
was expended in the purchase of the finest specimens of Greek and 
Roman Coins in the Wigan collection. In 1877, a very important 
addition was made to the collection by the donation of the cabinet of 
coins and medals belonging to the Bank of England, including the 
Cuff and Haggard medals. 
The extensive cabinet of gems which constituted the main feature 
of the Blacas collection, comprising 951 cameos and intaglios, 
