Museum’s Egyptian summer blockbuster

by Helen Musa

A NEW partnership between museums will see the exhibition, “Discovering Ancient Egypt”, from the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, take centre stage as the National Museum’s summer blockbuster.

Hor, priest of Montu, belonged to a powerful Theban family. From
'Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt' by Nigel Strudwick at The British Museum

The exhibition of Egyptian antiquities, which is touring Australia as part of a collaboration between the NMA, the Western Australian Museum and the Queensland Museum Network, features more than 200 objects exploring the ancient culture’s social and traditional history, spanning 3,000 years through jewellery, sculpture, pottery and funerary material.

While “Discovering Ancient Egypt” looks at life and death, religious practices, daily life and the journey to the afterlife, a unique aspect of the show is its focus on the history of discovery.

The discovery of the Rosetta Stone during Napoleon’s military campaign to Egypt and the rediscovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun will be explored, alongside the Dutch museum’s archaeological discoveries over decades, with multimedia presentations featuring the faces and voices of local Egyptian archaeologists and cultural custodians at dig sites.

Detail of The Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. Photo: Robin Dawes via flickr

A centrepiece will be the life-sized replica facade of the Nubian Temple of Taffeh, shipped to the museum from the Nile as a gift from Egypt to the Netherlands, and here illuminated by a large-scale graphic presentation.

Facade of the Nubian Temple of Taffeh. Photo courtesy Atlas Obscura

As well, recent CT scans have been conducted on mummified human and animal remains, preserved within their original linen bandages, with the results of the analysis to made public in Australia for the first time via a digital interactive.

“Discovering Ancient Egypt”, National Museum of Australia, December 15, 2023 to September 8, 2024.

First published at Canberra City News, August 2, 2023