Boston mummy exhibit

Egyptian Research Account by subscription. The ancient Egyptians wanted to defy death and live forever. In preparation, they mummified the dead, burying them in coffins covered with religious scenes and texts, and surrounding them with grave goods to sustain them in the afterlife. With more than objects ranging in date from about BC to AD , the Mummies gallery introduces visitors to the gods and goddesses who inhabited the underworld, and to the journey taken to reach them.

The installation features five embalmed dignitaries, including the husband and wife duo of Nesptah and Tabes, still enclosed in their elaborately decorated cases, and Nesmutaatneru, whose blue bead-adorned mummy was buried in a series of three coffins.

Other objects include carved tomb chapel walls, painted coffins, statues, magical equipment, papyri, and canopic jars, designed to hold the mummified organs of the deceased.

In order to entice people to come to the Panorama exhibition in Boston, he circulated a proposal that he unwrap one of the mummies as part of the exhibition. By the time the actual unwrapping the media had transformed the daughter of a priest into not only a priestess but also a princess. An anonymous poet in The Boston Daily Atlas o f 7 June penned "The mummy at home" which was a very long ode to this "princess" and her imagined life.

He sympathizes with her family's grief at her death, and describes her handsome young lover as "he weeps upon the broken stem of the lily of the Nile. The Panorama , lectures, and mummy unwrapping were to be exhibited at Tremont Temple over a series of three nights. Gliddon discoursed upon the Nile and the pyramids of Giza and the receptacles where mummies were found, an officiating carpenter took off his coat, and, with a small saw, proceeded to saw the case lengthwise The mummy came out in beautiful condition, as if it had been deposited in its case but yesterday instead of years before the birth of Christ.

It came out swathed in linen, smooth and but slightly discolored by the lapse of time This site uses cookies to improve the user experience.

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