The Karcher‑Keach Gift

Provenance: From the Nile to San Antonio

Origin — Early 20th-Century Egypt

These nineteen objects were collected in the early twentieth century by noted Egyptologist Keith C. Seele, according to SAMA's January 2026 acquisitions announcement. During this period, foreign-led excavations in Egypt operated under a partage system — a legal arrangement in which finds were divided between the Egyptian government and the excavating institution. Objects that went to institutional or private hands through this system, or through the then-legal Cairo antiquities market, are characteristic of the types represented in this collection: utilitarian pottery, small devotional figures, faience amulets, and stone vessels.

The Collector — Keith Cedric Seele (1898–1971)

Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Seele was one of the most accomplished American Egyptologists of his era. Born in Indiana, he began adult life as a missionary in Germany, where he met his wife, Diedericka Millard. The pair were inseparable — Keith refused to have children because he couldn't bear to leave Diedericka behind during fieldwork. For decades they lived aboard a boat on the Nile during excavation seasons, returning to their home near the Oriental Institute between campaigns.

Seele's career spanned the golden age of American Egyptology:

• The Nubian Rescue Expedition (1960s) — Seele directed the Oriental Institute's UNESCO-backed campaign to document and salvage archaeological sites in Lower Nubia before the rising waters of the Aswan High Dam submerged them forever. His team's work at the royal cemetery of Qustul yielded one of the most debated artifacts in Egyptology — an incense burner depicting what some scholars interpret as the earliest known representation of a pharaoh wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, predating the 1st Dynasty.
• The Tomb of Tjanefer at Thebes (OIP 86, 1959) — A meticulous publication of a New Kingdom tomb at Thebes, this remains a standard reference in mortuary archaeology.
• When Egypt Ruled the East — Seele's revision of George Steindorff's foundational textbook kept it in print for decades as required reading in Egyptology programs worldwide.
• Editor of JNES — He edited the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, one of the field's most prestigious publications, from 1948 until his death in 1971.

Beyond Egyptology, Seele maintained a lifelong friendship with the Blackfeet people of Montana. Every summer, he and Diedericka traveled to the reservation, where he befriended Chewing Black Bone, one of the last old-time Blackfeet elders. Chewing Black Bone gave Seele the name Ish-tut-sick-taupi — "Sits in the Middle." Seele died on July 26, 1971, at age 73. New York Times Obituary →

The Path to San Antonio

After Seele's death in 1971, his collection — accumulated over decades of fieldwork and professional activity in Egypt — passed through private hands before being acquired by San Antonio-based collector Chris Karcher. Karcher, who has deep ties to the study of ancient Egypt, and his wife Karen Keach recognized that the objects belonged in a public collection where they could be studied and appreciated.

Their giving came in two phases:

• 2021 — The First Gift (3 objects): A limestone Female Figure (Middle Kingdom), a fired-clay Female Figure with a Child on a Bed (New Kingdom), and a faience Taweret figurine (Late Period). These were accessioned as 2021.25.1 through 2021.25.3.
• 2025 — The Second Gift (16 objects): The larger group includes the collection's most notable piece — a Fragmentary Face of a King, a stone portrait fragment highlighted in SAMA's January 23, 2026 acquisitions announcement. Also included are Old Kingdom travertine vessels, a Predynastic polished red-ware jar, a New Kingdom faience spacer bead, a Late Period mold for Bes amulets, Roman-era bronze tweezers, and a group of New Kingdom miniature votive vessels. These were accessioned as 2025.1.1 through 2025.1.16.

All nineteen objects are now part of the Department of Ancient Mediterranean Art at SAMA, where they complement the museum's broader Egyptian holdings — the largest ancient Egyptian collection in the southern United States, anchored by foundational gifts from Gilbert M. Denman Jr.

Provenance Summary

Collected by Keith C. Seele (1898–1971), Egypt, early 20th century → Private collection → Chris Karcher and Karen Keach, San Antonio → Gift to San Antonio Museum of Art (2021.25.1–3 and 2025.1.1–16)

The Donors

Chris Karcher is a San Antonio-based collector with deep ties to the study of ancient Egypt. He and his wife Karen Keach have emerged as important benefactors to SAMA's ancient Mediterranean collection. Their 2021 gift of three Egyptian objects — a fertility figure, a mother-and-child group, and a hippo-goddess — was followed in 2025 by a substantially larger donation of sixteen pieces, making theirs one of the most significant gifts of Egyptian material to the museum in recent years.

The Karcher-Keach objects span the full arc of pharaonic civilization, from the Predynastic period (before 3100 BC) through the Roman occupation of Egypt. Their range of materials — polished clay, carved travertine, molded faience, cut stone, cast bronze — reflects the breadth of ancient Egyptian craft traditions and the collecting interests of their original owner, Keith C. Seele.