In spite of the manifold and profound researches on which this work was based, and in spite of the time and strength demanded by the editing of the “Monuments,” Lepsius, during the years following his return to his native land, himself superintended the embellishment of those rooms in the new museum at Berlin which were destined to hold the Egyptian collection. He also attended personally to the arrangement and cataloguing of the collection. He took peculiar pleasure in this work, and pursued it with indefatigable zeal. The aged Passalacqua, a man eager for knowledge, had gone to Egypt in the capacity of a merchant, and had afterwards made himself acquainted, as a dillettante, with the discoveries and works of Champollion. He now filled, “conscientiously and with pleasure to himself,” the post of superintendent of the collection of monuments and relics which he had brought from the Nile. Frederick William IV. in buying his collection had taken him with it into the bargain; no one wished to remove him from his position, and thus it came to pass that Lepsius could only be appointed co-director in 1855, and it was not until 1865, that he was appointed chief superintendent. The Berlin collection of Egyptian antiquities consisted of the collections of v. Minutoli, Passalacqua, v. Koller and Bartholdy. Prior to its removal to the new museum it had been lodged in the palace of Monbijou, and while there had received many additions, especially by the purchase of the third collection of Drovetti. This man, who had been French consul-general at Alexandria under Napoleon I., had some time before collected the rich stores which now form the Egyptian museum at Turin. (See pages 93 and 132.) He had already sold another smaller collection, (See page 97), to King William IV., upon the solicitation of Lepsius and in consequence of his intervention. Bunsen only concluded the purchase in 1837, as the authorized agent of that prince. In 1839, there was added to the Berlin collection that of the state-counsellor Saulnier at Paris, and in 1843, that of d’Athanasi at London. From the pamphlet published in 1880, entitled “History of the Royal Museum at Berlin,”[71] and from the portion of the same dedicated to Dr. S. Stern of the Egyptian department, we learn that there were already five thousand numbers in that department in the year 1849, that is, previous to the incorporation of the treasures which Lepsius sent home from Egypt.