Tag: Brooklyn museum

New Photos From The Mummy Chamber Exhibition at Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum have sent us some of the first pictures from their brand new long-term exhibit The Mummy Chamber, an exploration of afterlife beliefs and rituals in ancient Egypt, which as we blogged opened to the public on Wednesday.

Featuring 170 pieces from the museums extensive Egyptian collection, it highlights the elaborate and often strange lengths sometimes gone to in the land of the pharaohs in order to ensure that a deceased individual had the most pleasant and trouble-free experience possible after passing on into the mysterious realm of the dead. That means displays of everything from mummies, coffins and sarcophagi to ritual treasures discovered in burial chambers including statuettes, shabti figurines and books of spells.

Peer Down the Book of the Dead Corridor

Taken at the press preview, the photos show some of the exhibits key artefacts. The first shot is of the Book of the Dead Corridor the section of the exhibit dedicated to highlighting the highly popular practice in ancient Egypt of placing papyrus scrolls in tombs bearing a collection of hymns, spells and instructions believed to be vital in overcoming whatever challenges might be faced on the other side.

Youll notice, laid-out in a long cabinet running the length of the corridor, one of the main attractions at The Mummy Chamber namely a large portion of The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose. Painted onto two sides of a nearly eight-metre long papyrus scroll, and aged well over 3,000 years, this highly impressive example of a version of the Book of the Dead is on display for the very first time. Having originally been acquired by the museum back in 1938, it was only brought out of the archives for vital restoration work two years ago. Other sections of the scroll are still being worked on, and will be added to the exhibition at later dates.

Thothirdes was apparently on a tight budget.

The next picture shows the mummy of Thothirdes, a 26th Dynasty priest at Thebes. One of the aims of The Mummy Chamber is to convey the fact that mummification in ancient Egypt wasnt a practice that was carried out just one way there were techniques of varying quality available, depending on what an ancient Egyptian could afford. The full and most expensive works purification, dehydration, internal organ-storage, cleansing, wrapping and all is outlined in this blog. Thothirdes was apparently on a tight budget.

He had a middle-of-the-road mummification, Edward Bleiberg, the Brooklyn Museums curator of Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern art told The New York Times in a recent interview. This is proven by the fact that his organs were stuffed back into his body rather than stored in costly stone jars. The unsophisticated hieroglyphs on Thothirdes coffin further confirms that this priest was a man of modest means. The handwriting is terrible, Bleiberg added.

A Stunning Sarcophagus

The final picture shows three coffins placed in a row, exemplifying how burial caskets could vary in quality significantly too particularly as building techniques and fashions in decoration changed over the centuries. All made from wood, one is small and simple, the next is larger and much more ornately decorated. The last at the back is the stunning outer sarcophagus of Pa-seba-khai-en-ipet. Dating from around 1075-945 BC, it reflects a major shift in burial practice in the 21st Dynasty, when the Egyptian elites stopped building elaborate tombs and instead transferred the scenes normally painted on tomb walls to the coffin.

Its not visible in the picture, but theres damage to the painted surface on the left side of the casket, which has been left unrepaired. This is intended to reveal how the sarcophagus was made by carpenters pinning smaller pieces of wood together with wooden pegs. Artists then plastered and painted the surface to make it appear smooth.

Got pictures of your own from The Mummy Chamber that youd like to share? Then add them to the Heritage Key Flickr group.

Mummy Chamber Exhibit Now Open at Brooklyn Museum

in New York holds one of the largest and most famous collections of Egyptian material in the world. Today, it opens a brand-new, long-term exhibition gathering together 170 pieces from within its Egyptian collection titled The Mummy Chamber.

Its an exploration of the many complex ancient Egyptian afterlife rituals and beliefs, which were all intended to protect a deceased soul from harm once they passed-on, and ensure a pleasant experience on the other side. It covers everything from mummification to the placing of votive goods in burial chambers.

Organised by the Brooklyn Museums Curator of Egyptian Art Edward Bleiberg, The Mummy Chamber will feature a number of highly unique artefacts, from mummies to coffins, canopic jars and shabti funerary figurines, plus all kinds of stelae, reliefs, gold earrings, amulets, ritual statuettes and mummy boards.

Chief among the ancient Egyptian antiquities on display will be a section of the Book of the Dead of Sobekmose a nearly eight metre-long, 3000-year-old papyrus acquired decades ago but until now never before placed on public display.

Mummies

No Egyptian exhibition relating to the afterlife would be worth its salt without a few good mummies. The Brooklyn Museum has one of the finest selections of embalmed ancient bodies going, and has cherry-picked a few beauties both human and animal for this display. Theyll include the mummy of Pa-seba-khai-en-ipet, the 21st Dynasty Royal Priest and Count of Thebes, the mummy of Hor, a minor 13th Dynasty Egyptian king, and the mummy of the Thothirdes, a 26th Dynasty priest at Thebes.

Several of the Brooklyn Museums mummies have recently undergone intensive scientific testing including CT-scans to try and learn a bit more about them such as their sex, age, cause of death and living habits. For example, the mummy of Hor was for 70 years displayed as the body of a young female, until a CT-scan in 2009 proved it had all the anatomical features of a man! Details of these and other findings will form part of the installation, as will an insight into just how some of the mummies were embalmed.

The most thorough process of mummification as outlined in this blog involved the removal and preservation of internal organs and a long period of dehydrating the cadaver. It was an expensive business, and not always within the means of a deceased ancient Egyptian. Some exhibits in The Mummy Chamber will be dedicated to highlighting other, cheaper processes of mummification.

Coffins and Grave Goods

Equally as important as the mummification of a corpse itself was the container it was then placed within. Another key part of this Brooklyn Museum special exhibition will be a look at various types of sarcophagi, and the history of coffin-making for humans and animals in ancient Egypt.

The outer sarcophagi of Pa-seba-khai-en-ipet, for instance, reflects a major shift in burial practice in the 21st Dynasty, when the Egyptian elites stopped building elaborate tombs and instead transferred the scenes normally painted on tomb walls to the coffin. Hor, contrastingly, was encased in an elaborately decorated cartonnage (a case made from layers of linen or papyrus covered with plaster). It exemplifies the way that the painters of the Third Intermediate Period made use of the rich iconography available to them.

Even a deceased Egyptians internal organs removed during the mummification process were sometimes preserved in elaborate vessels, such as canopic jars or chests. Alongside the various different types of coffins, examples of these will also be displayed, as will various kinds of ritual objects tools intended to help the deceased overcome the various challenges they were expected to face in the afterlife. Shabtis were one popular such grave good small figurines whom it was believed could serve as servants or slaves in the afterlife. Expect to see lots of great examples of these too.

Essential Reading in the Afterlife

One of the most common artefacts found placed in ancient Egyptian tombs is copies of the so-called Book of the Dead the name commonly given to the ancient Egyptian funerary text Spells of Coming (or Going) Forth By Day. It was meant to assist the deceased on the other side by arming them with a collection of hymns, spells and instructions useful for overcoming whatever perils might face them in the afterlife.

The museum acquired The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose in 1937, but this will represents the first time its been on public display. It follows two years of painstaking conservation work.

Most commonly, the Book of the Dead was written on a papyrus scroll. The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose will form one of the centerpieces of The Mummy Chamber, and is a particularly impressive example of such an artefact. Covered with text on both sides as well as various illustrations, it was found buried in the grave of Sobekmose a treasurer for Amenhotep III, in the 18th Dynasty. His name recurs frequently throughout the text, accompanied by the title Gold-worker of Amun.

The Brooklyn Museum acquired The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose in 1937, but this will represent the first time its been made available for general viewing. It follows two years of painstaking conservation work to restore it to its former glory. Only a portion of the scroll has been restored so far, but work remains ongoing, and as other sections are made ready theyll be added to the gallery installation.

Been to The Mummy Chamber exhibition at Brooklyn Museum? Tell us what you thought in the comments field below, and share your photographs in the Heritage Key Flickr group.

How to Save Cash and Live Forever: Brooklyn Museum Exhibition Reveals Secrets of the Thrifty Egyptians

Ancient Egyptians faced tricky compromises over how they would be seen dead, a new exhibition at New York’s Brooklyn Museum reveals. “To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt,” emphasizes the often unpalatably expensive options that lay before Ancient Egyptians when considering burial. They had to think long and hard about what they could afford in the afterlife.

As has often been pointed out, the phrase “you can’t take it with you” had absolutely no purchase in Ancient Egypt, and the lengths to which humans were expected to go to demonstrate material wealth in the next life made the one before it truly onerous. The average Ancient Egyptian was beholden to an elaborate shopping list of mythological, symbolic and practical must-haves quite aside from the essential body parts normally required for burial, including elaborately decorated coffins, amulets, miniature workmen, food, wine, shabtis, jewellery, weapons, statuary, charms and spells from the Book of the Dead. This racket went on for thousands of years.

Funeral Expenses

The bottom line, as this excellent exhibition explains, is that furnishing a tomb was the biggest expense in an Ancient Egyptian’s life. The coffin alone could cost more than one year’s salary for an artisan. What set this all off? Apparently, it was the myth that grew up around Osiris, mythical first Pharaoh of Egypt, who was murdered by his jealous brother Set, but magically revived by his Queen, Isis, (giving her the opportunity to conceive their son, Horus), and who then embarked upon a new shadow life as god of the underworld or afterlife.

Presumably, this myth was meant to salve the ordinary man’s grief over dying kings, or death itself, since what was the point of toiling in the fields all day, every day, if it was all going to come to nothing in the end? The imaginative effort to answer this question over the millenia, and the abuse of the longing behind it, is responsible for forms of human silliness so elaborate as to threaten to eclipse everthing else we do. But this particular version had the unfortunate consequence of creating a durably convincing idea that life after death was so credible, so real, so very much, in fact, like life itself, that you best stock up with all the things you needed in this world against a similar need in the next one.

If you weren’t rich enough to be buried in a gilded sarcophagus, surrounded by black granite statuary and finely carved symbols of all the materials you might need in the next life, the exhibition explains, there was a range of options – “substitute, imitate, combine, and reuse” (which really ought to be the title of this exhibition).

Limestone, for example, isn’t as hard as black granite or granodiorite, but it’s commonly available and cheap, and will serve as a material for statues and busts. And, gosh, if you can’t even afford that, you can paint terracotta to look like granite. Yellow paint streaked with red looks a little like gilding, and white patches of paint lined with blue look like inlaid semi-precious eye pieces on a sarcophagus if you squint a bit. The exhibition lays out the contrasting options in a really simple and powerful way. A good example is the two exhibits about half way into the exhibition on the right – two head-and-shoulder pieces from separate sarcophagi (83.29 and 69.35). One is crudely made from terracotta, and painted in an inexpert, almost childish way. The other, pictured above, is a wonder of sophistication in linen, gilded gesso, glass and faience (ceramic made from sand).

Recycled Shabtis

There’s also a shabti – a symbolic figurine meant to help out with agricultural labor in the afterlife – that SAYS it belongs to Amunemhat, but when you examine it closer, Amunemhat’s name seems to have been added in later, over a scratched out piece of text. Brooklyn Museum Curator of Egyptian Art, Edward Bleiberg, speculates that Amunemhat may have indulged in a sneaky bit of Ancient Egyptian recycling. An even clearer example is the stunningly beautiful and elaborately painted Coffin of the Lady of the House Weretwahset (37.47Ea-d), below, which was used twice – the first time at the beginning of the 19th Dynasty, and again, with some repainting, at the end of the 20th Dynasty, a good 200 years later. 25 3/8 x 19 11/16 x 76 3/16 in. (64.5 x 50 x 193.5 cm) Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund Brooklyn Museum

This piece has been in storage since 1937 – another testament to the Brooklyn Museum’s embarassment of riches when it comes to ancient Egyptian artefacts, as well as its thoroughly admirable efforts to keep bringing its treasures out onto the museum floor for all to see.

I asked Bleiberg how the recycling thing worked. Wasn’t there a taboo against digging up graves and taking stuff out? Bleiberg admits there’s very little information available about how Ancient Egyptians justified these practices, but he pointed out that most tombs were family tombs, and so the option was, discreetly, to decide that great-great grandma must have made it to the other side by now, so why not save a bundle and reuse her coffin?

“These objects were considered vehicles,” Bleiberg explained. However, it wasn’t something to brag about, like getting married in your grandmother’s wedding dress. Discretion, it seems, was called for. This is demonstrated in the evidence of a government program in Thebes, around the end of the New Kingdom (c.1070 BC), for recycling funeray items, about the same time that Weretwahset’s coffin was getting a new coat of paint. The documentation, according to Bleiberg, takes the form of a government officer who says he’s located the tombs the Mayor mentioned, and he’s ready to dig them up, but he needs the Mayor there to give the disinterrment sufficient authority. Clearly, there was a taboo on digging up old graves; one powerful enough to give an underling pause before carrying out his superior’s instructions.

Beating Inflation

But the heat was clearly on, and Ancient Egyptians were forced to make do and mend when it came to tombs and coffins. Bleiberg points to massive inflation as a driving force behind such changes in practise. The cost of a coffin went up from 75 deben to 200 deben about this time, he said.

Cheapskate! This is terracotta painted to look like granite. Funerary Vessel of the Wab-priest of Amon, Nefer-her, Painted to Imitate Stone ca. 1479–1279 B.C.E. Pottery, painted 8 1/4 in. (21 cm) high x 4 17/16 in. (11.2 cm) diameter Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund Brooklyn Museum

The exhibition, which opened Feb 12 and runs through May 2 before embarking on a second leg of its ongoing nationwide tour, is beautifully put together. Upon entering, you’re immediately presented with a wonderfully simple and memorable explanation of the story of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Set, laying out the powerful mythology about the afterlife in a truly accessible way.

However, the lighting is at times a little too atmospherically dim, and you have to search around for the informational blurbs about some of the bigger pieces that are in the middle of the room, such as the very impressive Large Outer Sarcophagus of Royal Prince, Count of Thebes (08.480.1a-b).

Furthermore, the small amount of interactive material – a screen showing YouTube videos about the exhibition, and a feedback screen at the end – was disappointing, even taking account of some initial technical difficulties at the press preview I attended.

The true value, here, is in seeing the comparisons in materials and sophistication laid out so clearly. It turns out Ancient Egyptians fretted over how much to spend on ultimately useless items, just like you and me – they just put them in their tombs instead of in glass cabinets in the living room.

“Once you get beyond the unusual beliefs, you discover the ancient Egyptians had exactly the same problems we have,” said Bleiberg. “It’s like I tell my teenage son: You have to make choices. Are you going to buy this or are you going to buy that?” The exhibition helps people see that Ancient Egyptians were “real human beings, even though they lived four thousand years ago,” Bleiberg said. The benefit of that insight, Bleiberg believes, can be huge. “It allows us to have sympathy for people we initially find very different from us,” he argued. “That’s very useful in today’s very interconnected world.”

Brooklyn Museum Exhibition Reveals More Than the Sum of its Body Parts

Colossal Left Foot - Provenance unknown, Roman Period, 1st - 2nd century C.E. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. I dropped my phone last week and it stopped working. As the daughter, sister, and wife of engineers, I generally regard most broken things as a challenge and I am quite often able to fix them, so I gathered tiny screwdrivers and a good light source and prised the handset open. Inside was a world mostly unknown to me, of miniature circuit boards, teeny candy-striped transistors, and delicate little welds. I identified the problem, but it was beyond repair, so I went out and bought another phone with a renewed respect for the intricacies inside the things we use every day.

Similar thinking lies behind the Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art‘s truly breathtaking Ancient Egypt collection, which opened last month and runs until Oct. 2, 2011. Yekaterina Barbash, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum, explained to me that the idea behind gathering together 35 pieces of sculpture and funerary items a foot here, an eye there was that you can tell a lot about how something was made when its broken.

When I started working here at the museum a little less than two years ago. One of my first tasks was to explore the store room and familiarize myself with the collection, explains Barbash. As I was looking at the objects in storage I came across many beautiful fragments that had never been exhibited before. They caught my attention partly for their beauty and partly because when I looked at these fragments I began noticing details that one doesnt usually notice when looking at an entire sculpture – details that are often overlooked or not given enough importance. I thought that since I had this reaction, as an Egyptologist, museum visitors might appreciate seeing them.

Brooklyn’s Egypt Collection

The Brooklyn Museum has what my tour guide described as the third most significant collection of Egyptian artifacts in the U.S. the first and second being held at New Yorks Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Its a shame, in a way, that you have to hike up to the third floor to see it. I confess that Ive been to the Museum many times, and never bothered to discover the Egyptian treasures there. Brooklyn truly has a very impressive collection, and the Body Parts exhibition forms a tiny part of it, in a single space about the size of the average living room. In fact, the Body Parts show is in danger of being completely overshadowed by the rest of the collection if you havent visited it before the painted mummy cases are some of the most extraordinary Ive ever seen. But dont be put off. The whole idea is to narrow your view and encourage you to look a lot closer.

Many museums try to exhibit as many objects as possible, which is very good and positive for the student or scholar in that any scholar can come and see any object, muses Barbash. But on the other hand, such exhibitions can be overwhelming, both to visitors and to scholars. So with this exhibition, as well as the more permanent galleries, we hope that visitors will get a better impression of Egyptian art and culture and come away with a good memory of what theyve seen.

Reportedly from Karnak, Egypt, New Kingdom, 1281-1277 B.C. XIX Dynasty, Reign of Ramesses II. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. For example, there is an eye cut from crystalline limestone, obsidian, and blue glass that was once part of an anthropoid (human-shaped) coffin similar to the Museums famous Cartonnage of Nespanetjerenpere, currently on view in the permanent installation. Next to it is the bare-bones metal setting for such an eye, from a different anthropoid coffin. The sheer meticulous skill that went into this one detail of an object that was going to be buried in the ground is certainly striking. The broken stone surfaces on a headless kneeling statue of Khaemwaset, a son of Ramses II, shows the effort that must have gone into making the rough smooth as skin.

I would hope that visitors would get a better understanding of how ancient Egyptian art was made, how it was crafted. Looking at fragments of sculptures allows us better to see how a statue was created, says Barbash. For example, theres a small wooden foot with tenon on one side and peg on the top. In a complete statue, the tenon would be attached to the leg and the peg on the base, and they would be covered in gesso and painted, so we wouldnt see those tenons and pegs. But here were lucky enough to get an insight into the work of the artist. This is what I love about Egyptology, we occasionally get glimpses into real life and how it functioned.

The Changing Body of Egyptian Art

But Barbash wants visitors to see more than simply the exposed nature of materials and craftsmanship. The details on display here are often signs of the subtle progressions in Egyptian art through the centuries spanned by that apparently consistent culture.

Unfortunately, Ive noticed that many visitors who view Egyptian art assume that, because of the very strict canon that we all know about, the art didnt changed through the ages of Ancient Egypt, Barbash explains. But in fact, when their attention is focused on certain details and their attention is taken by the different materials and workmanship, we begin to realize that Egyptian art could be quite different; the body types could be quite different, and those differences can be appreciated.

There are several feet on display, for example, that show a noticeable progression both in rendition and materials from stone, to wood. Egyptian feet used to be shown in almost cartoonish outline, with the big toe always towards you, giving figures a slightly comical pair of two left, or two right feet, depending on which way they were facing. But this changed over time and the most recent foot, from the Roman era, is made of wood and scarily realistic.

Egypt, New Kingdom or later, 1539-30 B.C. Obsidian, crystalline limestone, blue glass. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. Another, rather more complex notion that Barbash would like to communicate is the tension that existed in Ancient Egyptian mythology between the importance placed on the wholeness of the human body, and the fact that each body part had a separate deity and significance attached to it.

On the one hand the Egyptians clearly valued the significance of keeping the body intact, so in the religious and mortuary context, you have the whole thing of mummification and burial practices, where the Egyptians did everything to keep the body the way it is, explains Barbash.

But at the same time, we know that Egyptian mortuary texts talk about each part of the body separately, and associate it with a different deity. This is expressed in the hieroglyphs, which deconstruct the body in a mythological, semiotic way. In this ancient culture, a body of text was less metaphorical than it is in ours. Your name, made up of sacred symbolic parts, was as much you as your body, and had to be protected and revered. This is represented in the philosophy and religion of the entirety of Ancient Egypt, says Barbash. For Ancient Egyptians, there was a real connection between text and image. Hieroglyphs were believed to be gifts from the gods.

Barbash is working next on what she calls a slight reinstallation of the permanent Ancient Egypt collection. She intends to introduce a series of mummy bandages that contain texts and vignettes from the Book of the Dead. I think theyre adorable, says Barbash, proving once again that archaeologists and curators of the Ancient World typically have more enthusiasm for what they do than a whole office block of accountants. The vignettes are really beautifully done, but since theyre rather small, theyre cute. Theyre also very interesting from the scholarly point of view, because although most museums do have inscribed and decorated mummy bandages, most dont display them. So I think this will be a great opportunity to let the public and Egyptology scholars know about them.

The Brooklyn Museum continues to shine as an example of an institution where there is constant, thoughtful, intelligent motion going on behind the scenes that benefits the visitor with the endless series of story slants that is necessary to do justice to a grand old civilization.

Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets is at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Thursday 19 November 2009 to Sunday 2 October 2011.

Brooklyn Museum’s Lisa Bruno on Animal Mummy Research

The Brooklyn Museum holds 7 human and over 60 animal mummies in their collection. We know already quite a lot about their human mummies, but now Lisa Bruno tells us more about the animal mummy research project at the Museum in an informal presentation for the Museum’s ‘1stfans’. The Brooklyn Museum’s conservator Lisa Bruno talks about what an object conservator exactly is (and how to become one), the travelling exhibition ‘To Live Forever’ which is coming to the Brooklyn Museum February 2010 and the research the Getty Institute did on the ‘red mummy’ Demetrios – once thought to be a female.

And that’s not all, in her presentation Lisa Bruno also gives an insight in the extensive research on animal mummies: humanoid mummies containing ~~both ibis and cat bones~~ ibis bones*, crocodile mummies, fake animal mummies, resins used in mummification, blunt trauma on cats and poisoned crocodiles, economics of animal mummification, metal animal coffins and even a snake mummy!

Not all animal mummies consist of a whole animal, and it’s quite well possible this was a question of economics. There were many ways to make an animal mummy, but the most traditional way follows the way human mummies – don’t try this at home – are created:

Make an incision, take out the internal organs.
Dry the mummy using natron salt (sodium carbonate).
Seal and preserve the tissue with resinous materials like tree sap, waxes or coal tar.
Wrap in linen bandages.

Why did the Egyptians make animal mummies? Common thought by the public is that they were cherished pets, or grave gifs that could be useful in the afterlife. But that would not explain why hundreds and hundreds of animal mummies were found in Egypt, and some are actually in dedicated cemeteries. So might the cat mummies have served a more spiritual purpose? Likely, if you see that the mummy of a snake-killing egyptian mangoes was associated with a goddess of protection, and at some point animal mummies were even obligatory to honour the rulers of ancient Egypt.

Animal Mummy CSI: Conservator Lisa Bruno
talks about the animal mummy research project
at the Brooklyn Museum

As more institutions begin to study their collections of ancient animal mummies, there seems to only be more questions as to what these differences in mummification styles and animal species might actually mean.

In the months that have followed this presentation, the Brooklyn Museum’s conservation lab has continued to examine and x-ray the collection of animal mummies. They have enlisted the help of a radiologist at The Animal Medical Center Dr. Anthony Fischetti. Recently Anthony and a colleague visited the museum specifically to look at the x-radiographs of the cat mummies. In examining the radiographs, the veterinarians were able to confirm that the animals in the x-rays were in fact cats, and were able to give information regarding possible age. Depending on the size and shape of the skull and teeth, they were sometimes able to suggest whether the mummified cat was more likely a species of domesticated cat (Felis silvestris) or a wild species (Felis chaus).

The Brooklyn Museum also donated two long bones from their cat mummies to the ‘feline genome project’ run by Dr. Leslie Lyons for the University of California. The project is looking into what ancient DNA can tell us about current domestic cat populations. We’re curious, especially as people despite extensive research still not agree when the first ‘wolf’ was turned ‘dog’.

Finding body parts in Brooklyn is news? It is when they’re this old!

Those of you who just can’t get enough of the Ancient Egyptians and their obsessive-compulsive burial rituals are in for a treat at the Brooklyn Museum when it opens its exhbition, Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets, this November.

The Museum announced:”Body Parts features thirty-five objects that represent individual body parts in ancient Egyptian art from the Brooklyn Museums collection, many of which will be displayed for the first time. While traditional exhibitions of ancient art focus on reconstructing damaged works, this exhibition uses fragmentary objects to illuminate the very realistic depiction of individual body parts in canonical Egyptian sculpture. The ancient Egyptians carefully depicted each part of the human body, respecting the significance of every detail. When viewed individually these sculptures and fragments reveal ancient notions of the body, as well as details of workmanship, frequently unnoticed in more complete sculptures.

This exhibition is organized by Yekaterina Barbash, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art, Brooklyn Museum.

The Brooklyn Museum is often portrayed as poor relation to Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art… but the truth is it’s more like a funky younger brother.

The Brooklyn Museum is often portrayed as poor relation to Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, across the East River, but the truth is it’s more like a funky younger brother, or even black-sheep niece. When the Saatchis brought the controversial “Sensation” exhibition to New York City, it was at the Brooklyn Museum that it found a home, not the more staid institutions in Manhattan.

The Brooklyn Museum has an impressive collection of Ancient Egyptian stuff, and a cheering propensity to, like, really do things to make the collection constantly fresh and interesting. At present, they are showing, “Magic in Ancient Egypt: Image, Word, and Reality,” which runs through Oct. 18. What more excuse do you need for a visit?

Check out Two Boots Pizza in Park Slope, afterwards, for food good and cheap enough to bring you back from the dead.

How the Brooklyn Museum’s male mummies were misdiagnosed as female

When recently the mummy formerly known as ‘Lady Hor’ underwent a scan, researchers were surprised to find that it should have been ‘Sir Hor’ from the start. Yet, this case of ‘gender confusion’ is not a unique one. The same happened to ‘The Daughter of Amunkhau’ – actually a son – from the Birmingham Museum Collection and according to curator Edward Bleiberg on the Brooklyn Museum’s blog, no less than three of the five male mummies from that museum – including Lady Hor – that were CT-scanned in the last eighteen months were at one time thought to be women. How could such mistakes in identification of the mummies be made? Curator Edward Bleiberg blames ‘bad grammar, bad x-rays, and bad judgment‘:

Because of her size, ‘Lady Hor’ was not that easy to manoeuvre in place for her CT-scan. In the end, she turns out to be a big boy. Video: Brooklyn Museum on Flickr

Bad Grammar for Demetris: “Before Demetris became a mummy, he lived in the first century AD when many Egyptians had Greek names, the result of Alexander the Greats conquest in the 4th century BC Demetris was thought to be a woman because his name – written on his linen wrappings – ended in is, a feminine grammatical ending in classical Greek. Scholars early in the twentieth century thought that a man could only be named Demetrius. One early curator commented that Demetris portrait represented a particularly homely woman.” (Learn more about earlier findings on Demetris’ life and death on the Brooklyn Museum’s blog.)
Bad X-rays for Thorthirdes: “Thothirdes masculinity was questioned because of bad x-rays. In spite of the beard of Osiris on his coffin, in spite of his red face – which is a trait traditionally associated with portrayals of Egyptian men – an x-ray very early in the 20th century suggested to an early curator that he was clearly female. The most recent CT-scan showed, on the contrary, that Thothirdes is unquestionably anatomically male. This is a particular relief since it means that his beard and red face make better sense.”
Bad Judgement for Lady Hor: “She was identified as female because of her lovely face, clearly feminine in the judgement of an early curator. Again the face was red, but the lack of a beard on the cartonnage coffin and the faces delicacy was taken as proof that Hor was a woman. The CT-scan, however, left no doubt that he was a man. Sometimes judgement alone is too subjective to make this determination.”

I assume the staff at the Brooklyn Museum‘s Egyptology department can only be glad this was cleared out once and for all through ‘Mummy CSI’.

Yet these are probably not the most famous cases of ‘mistaken mummy identity’ ever. The most obvious one – one I was guilty of myself – you can watch happen in the British Museum daily. If you go stand next to the mummy of ‘Cleopatra of Thebes’ and you’d be surprised how many tourists shout out: “Look, it’s Cleopatra!” and “Oh my -insert deity depending on religion-, she was only 17?!” Maybe there, placing a big sign saying “This is not Marcus Antonius’ Cleopatra!” could be advised? At leat it would have saved me the embarrassment of stating ‘Why is Dr. Zahi still looking for Cleopatra if it’s obvious the British Museum has her and is – also obvious – not planning to hand her over?’ *blush*

Mummies Taken To Hospital For CT-Scan

Last week the Brooklyn Museum took four of their ancient Egyptian mummies to the North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, as they were in dying need of a CT-scan. Pure Archaeology 2.0, not only because of the use of modern technology, but because the museum staff used ‘the web 2.0’ to document their trip and the scanning of the mummies as it was happening on Twitter – #mummyCT – and Flickr. Over at pyramidofman.com there’s an elaborate report on the mummies’ journey, but here are some of the highlights of this episode of CSI: Mummy:

Mummy ‘Lady Hor’ is in fact a man

Tweet by the Brooklyn Museum:

“its a boy! – scrotum and penis pretty well preserved, but the anthropoid coffins says woman but going for closer look #mummyCT“

The CT-scan did show breast forms on the cartonnage – not on the body – which makes this even more curious. Transgender practices in ancient Egypt?

Also found, but less shocking were natron sacks and four wrapped organs inside Lady Hor.

Slideshow of the Mummies visit to the hospital for CT Scanning

They forgot to take the brain out?

Bennu writes on the second mummy: “Until this CT scan very little was known about mummy #2 who lived roughly around the time 300-400 BC. The scan showed that he was well preserved, had no organs and showed the brain preserved in the skull, the nose not being cracked to remove the brain. It even showed a preserved beard as indicated by his portrait.”

A random fact Tweet from the press conference

“@brooklynmuseum started doing non-invasive xrays of mummies in 1936 – much better quality in CT scans today“

Reed found in Pasebakhaienipets esophagus

There is no official theory yet as to why this object was placed in Pasebakhaienipet’s throat, but the Brooklyn Museum promised to soon publish more information on the analysis of these 4 mummies on their blog, so keep posted!

As a conclusion I can only say, I wish more research teams and projects were this open about their discoveries and would report them to the public that instantaniously. Brooklyn Museum, please keep that awesome attitude!