Two objects · two custody chains
The Provenance Table
The stela and the bow were never part of the same custody chain. But their two chamber-openings — the stela's optical arc first sighted, the Veiled Oasis chamber unsealed — happened the same morning. Follow both tracks below. Click any node for its supporting detail.
After consulting both tracks, their shared date may be retained as a temporal correspondence. The Archive does not enter a cause.
The Stela · Register B No. 41
- 3 Feb–9 Mar 1909 Optical arc recorded
- 9 Mar 1909 Stela removed from socket
- 2 Apr 1909 Consigned, S.S. Manora
- 1909 Delivered to anonymous subscriber
The Bow · field no. 137
- 3 Feb 1909, 5.50 a.m. Chamber 3 opened, Site VO-7
- 12 Feb 1910 Partage — assigned to expedition share
- 4 Nov 1910 Consigned, bill of lading AR-1188
- 1911–1954 Provenance lacuna — unaccounted
- 14–15 Jan 1954 Depot 4 inundated
- 9 Mar 1954 Salvage Licence SL-1954/12
- 22 Jul 1954 Accession SA.1954.017.a–c
- 2026–2027 Verrick Museum loan, Gallery 9
3 February 1909
At Ras el-Qaus, Mr. Halloway first reported the optical arc over Tomb R.14's shaft mouth — “a bit of rainbow in a clear sky,” some twenty minutes before sunrise. At the Veiled Oasis, roughly 5.50 a.m. the same morning, Cordelia Ravensworth's party lifted the sealed slab of Chamber 3 and found the bow assembly within.
Cordelia's July 1909 letter records checking her own daybook three times, certain she must have misremembered. She had not. Neither party knew of the other's find until months later. The coincidence is reported in both the Report and the Sealed Dossier, and resolved in neither.
Read the correspondence → The Stela · optical arcNineteen mornings, 3 Feb–9 Mar 1909
Dr. F. L. Ambrose recorded an arc of coloured light standing over the mouth of Tomb R.14 on 19 of the 35 mornings between 3 February and 9 March, always before sunrise, never after. The bearing of its centre held constant at 284° (±1°30′), regardless of the sun's own drift of some 4° over the period. The light was plane-polarised; extinction was nearly complete at one position of the Nicol prism.
Read Dr. Ambrose's memorandum → The Stela · removal9 March 1909
The arc was seen for six minutes on the morning of 9 March and never again. The stela was lifted from its socket and carried down to camp the same day. Dr. Ambrose kept watch, instruments ready, for eighteen following mornings. Nothing was seen. “I offer no conjecture as to the bearing of the one fact upon the other,” he wrote. “I record only that the watch was kept.”
Read the Annual Report → The Stela · consignment2 April 1909
Consignment No. 118: one case, limestone stela (No. 41), packed in dry chaff and sawdust, handle upright. Shipped from Alexandria aboard the S.S. Manora, per procuration of Messrs. Grindlay & Holt, Solicitors, 14 Bedford Row, London, for onward delivery.
See the shipping label facsimile → The Stela · delivery1909
The case was addressed through the Committee's solicitors for onward delivery to an anonymous English subscriber, whose name is withheld at his own request, as in the printed Report. His identity has never been established from any material in this archive.
The Bow · discovery3 February 1909, 5.50 a.m.
First light into Chamber 3 at Site VO-7. The slab lifted clean; mortar sound, no prior disturbance. Within, a basalt case (137) held two curved limbs of black glassy stone (137a) joined at a gilt-wrapped grip, and a coiled fibrous cord (137b). Cordelia's private note: for one moment, by lamplight, the object looked to lie drawn — “curved hard the other way” — rather than at rest. She set this aside as a trick of a bad lamp and three poor nights' sleep.
Read the field notebook excerpt → The Bow · partage12 February 1910
Division of finds under the season's partage schedule; the object assigned to the expedition's own share, at Alexandria under A. Fenwicke-Stade.
The Bow · consignment4 November 1910
Consigned in barque-state, crated with its case, under bill of lading AR-1188, to the Maritime Depot at Aethelgard Roads.
Read Papers of the Interval → The Bow · the lacuna1911–1954
No instrument of transfer, insurance schedule, customs entry, or correspondence covering the object has been located for this period. The Museum's Registrar's Office reports the gap as a gap, not as knowledge. Claims circulated in the trade press of the 1930s are unsupported by any document held or seen by the Department — a private note from a dealer, signed only “H.P.,” guardedly mentions a rumor and explicitly declines to pursue it.
Read the dealer's note → The Bow · the floodNight of 14–15 January 1954
Depot 4 was inundated. The warehouse ledger's final entry trails off: “contents not yet surveyed.” An average adjusters' casualty schedule, dated 22 January 1954, lists the crate as “unrecovered; submerged; survey pending,” among four mundane neighbouring lots.
Read the adjusters' schedule → The Bow · salvage9 March 1954
Raised from Depot 4 by the Aethelgard Commission's Salvage Office under Salvage Licence SL-1954/12. The crate was intact; the seal of the case was intact.
The Bow · accession22 July 1954
Accessioned by the Collection of the Sunken Aethelgard as SA.1954.017.a–c (limb assembly, string, reliquary case), in barque-state, per the numbering convention of 1951.
The Bow · present loan2026–2027
On outgoing loan to the Verrick Museum of Antiquities, Ostrander Wing, Gallery 9, under Loan Agreement L.2026.114, exhibited alone as “The Bow of Ra.”