James E. Quibell's records on Saqqara in the archives of Alexandre Varille

This paper provides an overview of some archival materials from James E. Quibell archive, which is preserved at the Università degli Studi di Milano (State University of Milan, Italy). This wealth of materials (more than 3500 photographic prints, notebooks, etc.) is the object of an on-going project supported by a grant from The Michela Schiff Giorgini Foundation started in 2014. The paper presents some general considerations that emerged from the analysis of the photographs and illustrates through some different case studies the importance of the discovery of this documentation as well as that of the handwritten one. Besides documenting the major discoveries made by Quibell in Saqqara, the archival materials preserved in Milan is precious not only for the archaeological research stricto sensu, but also for the history of antiquities collecting and provides plenty of information on how could be working in Saqqara at the beginning of the XXth Century.