Tyne and Wear HER(1706): Penshaw Church, Egyptian tablet - Details
1706
Sunderland
Penshaw Church, Egyptian tablet
Penshaw
NZ35SW
Monument
Findspot
Plaque
POST MEDIEVAL
Victorian 1837 to 1901
Find
Penshaw Church is a19th century church of fairly plain design. In the nave of the church, on the left hand wall towards the communion rail, there is a stone tablet of pink granite. This is a fragment of the Great Pyramid of Giza near Cairo, the tomb of Cheops who died about 4,500 years ago {1}. The fragment ended up in Penshaw because Sir George Elliot MP, financial advisor to the Egyptian Khedive, was given two fragments in 1876 as a gift (the other, a granite tablet, is in West Rainton church in County Durham). Elliot lived near Penshaw as a boy. Members of his family are buried there.
432920
553930
NZ432920553930
<< HER 1706 >> Tyne and Wear County Council, 1985, Penshaw Monument and the River Wear leaflet; http://northeasthistorytour.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/west-raintons-pyramid-fragment-nz323469.html; Paul Perry and Derek Dodds, 2013, West Rainton Souvenir of the Pharoahs in Curiosities of County Durham, https://books.google.co.uk/books;