The Council of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts provided generous support for the digitization of the Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection of Fabergé and Russian Decorative Arts. Digitization of the Lillian Thomas Pratt Archives has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Fabergé’s greatest triumph was the series of fifty-two unique Easter eggs made for the last tsars of Russia. Inspired by the traditional Russian custom of giving decorated eggs at Easter, Tsar Alexander III commissioned the first Imperial Easter egg in 1885 as a gift for his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna. The First Hen Egg was made of gold covered in white enamel so that it resembled a real egg. When the empress opened the egg, she discovered a gold yolk. Inside the yolk was a hen, which contained a diamond-set crown and two ruby pendant eggs. She was so pleased that her husband continued the practice of giving her a Fabergé egg containing a surprise every year. Ten additional eggs were created as Easter presents for Maria Feodorovna.

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The colossal site of Karnak is one of the largest temple complexes in the world, with an incredibly rich architectural, ritual, religious, economic, social and political history. The Amun-Ra precinct, which includes an astonishing number of individual temples, shrines and processional ways, stands as a micro-cosmos of ancient Egypt.

We invite you to experience Karnak – to learn about an ancient site that still resonates today because of its monumental pylons, towering columns, stunning reliefs and architectural marvels. Enter the temple precinct and discover its rich religious, political and architectural history.

The Digital Karnak Project was designed and built at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) under the direction of Dr. Diane Favro (director of the ETC) and Dr. Willeke Wendrich (editor-in-chief of the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology).

To start, choose one of the options above or go directly to the temple complex overview. Click hereto learn more about the Digital Karnak project.