Sunday, January 11, 2009

Exhibition: Life of Meresamun Exhibit at Oriental Institute

Suite 101 (Stan Parchin)

"The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt" at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum reconstructs the world of the religious performer.

Exhibited from February 10 to December 6, 2009 are the results of computerized tomography or CT scans of the mummy of Meresamun (ca. 800 B.C.), a singer-priestess.

Seventy-two pieces of jewelry and pottery, each similar to those the performer owned or used inside and beyond the Theban temple precinct, join commemorative stone stelae and manuscripts. Musical instruments (a delicate harp, ivory clapper and sistrum or rattle) and other religious objects, all related to divinatory and animal cultic rituals, are included in the museum's revelatory presentation.

Dr. Emily Teeter, an Oriental Institute Museum Egyptologist and the exhibition's curator, stated, "In a virtual way, people will be able to meet this remarkable woman and, through her eyes, learn what it was like in Egypt 2800 years ago. We will be able to 'recreate' the life of an Egyptian in a way no one has attempted before."


See the above page for the full story.

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