Monday, March 02, 2009

Sad News: Virginia Burton

Richmond Times Dispatch (Ellen Robertson)

As a curator of Egyptian art for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Lucille Virginia Burton often traveled alone, except for a guide, to archaeological spots throughout the Middle East.

"'Ginny' learned that "if you don't show fear, that can get you out of situations," said her friend, Louise Friday of Urbanna. "She once thought two guides were getting ready to rob her, so she quickly jumped up and said, 'Let's go!' and forcefully dissuaded them."

A woman who had stayed in the cliffs of Petra and taught herself to read hieroglyphics, Ms. Burton, who died Sunday at 90 in a Richmond nursing home, said the pièce de résistance of her career was overseeing the transfer of the Temple of Dendur from Egypt.

The temple was given to the United States by Egypt in 1965 and allotted to the museum in 1967. Installation was completed in 1978 in the Sackler Wing, which was built around the temple as it was being reassembled.


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