Article written by Sera-Lyn Terare.
Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives is an exhibit on loan from the British Museum which is a chance given to Brisbane locals and tourists to explore the lives of six mummies and more than 200 artefacts from the time of Ancient Egypt. The idea of this exhibit is to showcase the life and death of six individuals who lived in Egypt between 3000 and 1800 years ago.
After a long bus ride into the city, we finally got to Brisbane Cultural Centre where the Queensland Museum is located. Since it was the last weekend of school holidays and no surprise, it was busy with families and tourists groups coming and going throughout the museum and walking towards South Bank, a top tourist destination within Brisbane City.
Bundling up the children and handing out tickets, we were finally inside the exhibit. Not knowing what to truly expect from the exhibit we came face to face with mummified human remains of a human being along with a television on the wall beside it explaining the use of CT scanning technology taught historians and scientists the process of embalming and mummification.
I was amazed at the historical artefacts that I came across with every step I took. Ancient tablets of limestone with the instructions for embalming of the dead carved into the limestone in Ancient Egyptian was one of my favourite artefacts. It was carved by a priest who was one of the mummies that were exhibited.
Another interesting artefact was the Canopic Jars, these were a tool used during the embalming procedure. It was used to house the organs of the dead and was put into a larger box that is buried with the sarcophagus.
All six mummies were embalmed and buried in a sarcophagus in areas of Ancient Egypt like Thebes for example however, not every person during Ancient Egypt was embalmed and buried in this way.
In most instances, it was the royals, priests/priestesses and those affiliated who could afford to pay for the process of having their bodies preserved for the afterlife. To be able to have your body embalmed and mummified was an expensive process and many people who lived during this time believed that to have a life after death that you needed to undergo this process, making this process a coveted procedure.
Now, I don’t wish to spoil the exhibition for those who have seen it so I won’t explain the how and who carved this piece of history. I will however tell you what and how it was made and the significance.
In Ancient Egypt, they didn’t have pen and paper like we do now. Pen and paper is a modern magic that the Egyptians didn’t get to have but eventually they learned to carve their words and history into markings onto pieces of limestone’s that we call ‘Tablets’.
The limestone tablet is the very same limestone that was used to build the pyramids and other architectural structures of this time. The limestone were large and heavy stones that were found along the Nile with most of the stones having to be transported from the Nile on barges. The Ancient Egyptians found that not only could they use the limestone to build their houses and pyramids but they could also carve hieroglyphs on the stone to convey messages with something they called a stele.
The limestone tablets, mummies, sarcophagus’ and Canopic jars were just a few of my favourite parts of the exhibit, however it was the section of the exhibit that showed a snippet of what life was like in Ancient Egypt.
The jewels, clothing, children toys and the home life. How each person lived their life and the jobs that many of them could do and how they found entertainment in a time that had far less than what we do now.
This exhibit is a fantastic way to explore Egyptian Mummies and the life that they would have lived and definitely worth buying tickets for. The exhibit runs from 16 March 2018 until 26 August 2018.
That means there is still a month for anyone who would like to see it to go for it. The tickets are so affordable that you wish you had thought of this idea yourself.
I can’t speak for the people who have seen the exhibit and show the same appreciation and curiosity as I have for Ancient Egypt but for me, this exhibit opened my eyes to a culture that hasn’t been forgotten but isn’t celebrated.
Ancient Egyptian culture is more than just evil curses, mummies and pyramids. It is history and history should be celebrated.
For more information on how to get tickets, visit the website http://www.mummies.qm.qld.gov.au/.
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