Exhibition: Mummified at the Walters Art Museum

The John Hopkins Newsletter (Alec Meacham)

Mummified!, a current exhibit at The Walters Art Museum, is interesting, somewhat educational, and a great weekend venture for anyone looking for a nerdy good time.

The Walters Art Museum, located a block away from Peabody, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday. Mummified!!, highlights the Walters Museum's very own well-preserved mummy, Mery. It is an exhibit that is at once serious and playful.

The first part of the exhibit features a few interesting artifacts and two computer stations that offer information on the processes involved in mummification and the cultural and religious significance of this hallowed ritual.

This first section, though, barely holds a candle to the centerpiece of the exhibit: Mery the Mummy. Mery, who is about 4' 9'' tall and lived to be somewhere around 60, can be found in a climate-controlled glass case in the center of the room.

She is placed on a "Mummy board" and is wrapped in linen and plaster. This casing is painted with images, in surprisingly vivid colors, of Egyptian gods involved in the processes of death and renewal: Osiris, Anubis, Horace and Hapi.

Next to the body one finds four canopic jars, or containers for the departed's vital organs. Some might remember these jars from the modern-day popular movie The Mummy. Along with these jars are several small, ornate amulets that were at one point sewn into Mery's fabric.

One of the best parts of the exhibit - indeed, of The Walters in general - is the endearing nerdiness of it all.