Friday, August 18, 2006

Review of the new mummy gallery in Cairo

Nevine el-Aref reviews the new mummy gallery at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, giving very useful details about the origins of the mummies displayed. "The 53 mummies, the total in the two caches, were kept in the Egyptian museum for decades until 1994, when the first Royal Mummies Hall was opened on the museum's second floor. Last week, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni inaugurated the second gallery after two years of preparation. The opening comes almost 12 years after the opening of the first, which displays 11 royal mummies from the age of empire that began in the late 17th Dynasty and continued through the 19th Dynasty. Pharaohs of this period led the liberation war against the Hyksos.
The second gallery is designed like a royal tomb, with a vaulted ceiling and low, indirect lighting. It displays 11 mummies that are exhibited inside special showcases, each supplied with a small electronic device to observe and control the humidity level around the mummy minute by minute. The mummies belong to royal individuals of the 20th Dynasty such as Pharaoh Ramses III, and to priests of Amun who ruled the southern half of Egypt as priest-kings. . . . This room also displays three mummies of queens, including that of Maatkare."
See the above page for the full story.

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