Exhibition: Ancient Egyptian priestess woos Pink City

The Statesman (Binoy Valsan)

Castle ruins, sand dunes, camels, multi-coloured turbans and even long handle-bar moustaches ~ these are some of the typical images that flash across the mind of an average tourist bound for the desert state. They never expect to bump into an ancient Egyptian priestess in the heart of the Pink City, which explains their astonishment at the Egyptian gallery of the famous Albert Hall Museum here in the city. Most of them are unaware of the fact that it has on display the mummified remains of a female member of the Tutu clan who was believed to be an invoker of the ancient Egyptian deity Chem before she arrived here to spend her afterlife.

“I never expected to find a mummy here in the middle of Jaipur. People at the tourist desk had given me a long lecture on the castles, forts and the desert but nobody told me anything about her (pointing to the mummy),” said Tim Ryan, a tourist from Ireland.

Guarded by two life size figures of the ancient Egyptian Goddess of Death, Sekhmet and high priest, Imhotep on both sides of her casket, the 2200 year old Egyptian mummy was brought here by the Jaipur royal family in 1887 from Cairo. The casket is decorated with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and symbols including an invocation to Anubis, the Lord of Necropolis, the Egyptian city of the dead.