From the WMDC Press and Communications Office
DISCOVERING
ANCIENT EGYPT
27 FEBRUARY 2006
Visitors
to Wakefield Museum can now peer into the inside of an ancient Egyptian
coffin. The coffin, in the Discovering Ancient Egypt exhibition, is
brightly painted on the outside with the face of the dead person. Curious
visitors have been asking what is inside. So museum staff have now taken
off the lid.
The
inside is as brightly painted as the outside. It shows many images
designed to protect the mummy that once lay inside. On the base,
underneath where the mummy lay, are traces of the costly liquids poured
over the body during the funeral. The side walls of the coffin are also
painted with rows of gods, some with wings stretched out to protect the
dead person in the life after death.
The
painted decoration shows it was made for a priest of the state god, Amun,
about 1,000 BC. Although his mummy is no longer inside, the coffin is
believed to have been found at Thebes (modern Luxor). It may have been
part of a mass burial of over 150 priests discovered in 1891 at Deir el-Bahari
on the West Bank of the Nile.
The
priest wears a headband around a long striped wig, and a huge collar of
lotus flowers, symbols of rebirth, covers his upper body. His eyes and
brows are outlined in heavy cosmetics, as both men and women wore make up
in ancient Egypt, and his ears are pierced.
Egyptologist
Dr Joann Fletcher of York University, who advised on the exhibition, said
"The coffin is a superb example of its type, its decoration revealing
the great skill of those who made it. It also gives us a wonderful image
of the 3,000 year-old priest who once lay inside."
The
objects in the exhibition have been loaned by Harrogate Borough Council,
together with a smaller group of Egyptian objects from Wakefield's own
collections. The exhibition has been extremely popular, both with family
visitors and school parties, who want to know more about the sophisticated
and highly organised life of the Egyptians up to 5000 years ago. The
exhibition runs until 22nd April, at Wakefield Museum, Wood Street,
Wakefield. The museum is open every day and admission is free.
Ref:
PR724
Date: 27/02/06
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