Exhibition: Life and Death in the Pyramid Age

Michael C. Carlos Museum

Acquired from excavations at the sacred site of Abydos in Middle Egypt by Emory Theology Professor, Rev. William A. Shelton in 1920, this mummy is the oldest Egyptian mummy in the Western Hemisphere and one of no more than half a dozen known to exist in the world.

Current examinations being undertaken at Emory Hospital and in the Carlos Museum’s conservation lab promise to reveal much about the little understood origins of mummification in Egypt. No other mummy of this early date has been investigated using modern scientific procedures such as CT-scanning, radiocarbon dating, blood typing, and spectroscopic analysis.

The exhibition will also place the mummy within the context of ancient Egypt's practice of mummification, burial, and the cult of the dead, as well as exploring the social and political changes that marked the end of the Pyramid Age.