I began to be interested in Egyptology when I was about 20. I started reading anything I came across dealing with the subject, among them Leonard Cottrell’s The Secrets of Tutankhamen’s Tomb (1964). The latter is about the discovery of one of the few pharaoh tombs ever found intact, in pristine condition, deep underground in the Valley of the Kings.
Cover of Leonard Cottrell’s book The Secrets of Tutankhamen’s Tomb.
The famous funerary mask of the young pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Cairo Museum, Egypt. Photo: Wikipedia
Since then, every time I go abroad, I never miss visiting museums, especially archaeological ones. And the sections that attract me most are those that exhibit relics from Egypt of circa 5,000 years ago. I am simply fascinated by artefacts made by skilled ancient Egyptians and the mummies of birds, animals, children, adults and pharaohs, and the sarcophagi they were buried in.
In London and Paris
In the summer of 1965, when I was 23, I visited London for the first time and went to the British Museum, in Great Russell Street, among others. I wanted to see its special section of ancient Egyptian antiquities, among them the famous Rosetta Stone. I was really captivated by the inscribed stele when I saw it for real.
Facade of the British Museum, London. Photo: The British Museum
The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, London. Photo: The British Museum
After going around all the relics including papyri, stele, mummies and sarcophagi, and sphynxes, I wondered if these were all the material found from the pharaohs’ period in Egypt, and why all of them were in the British Museum. Little did I know that about a month later, I would enjoy seeing more in the Egyptian collection at The Louvre in Paris, one of the largest after that of Cairo.
In Turin
When I was in Turin sometime in the 1990s, I visited the Egyptian Museum there, which is full of pottery artefacts, statuettes, small and large papyri with awe-inspiring colourful hieroglyphs, sphynxes, mummies and artistically colour-painted sarcophagi.
Statues and sphynxes in Turin’s Egyptian Museum. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
Statues and sphynxes in Turin’s Egyptian Museum. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
The author near a sphynx in Turin’s Egyptian Museum. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
The museum, which opened in 1854, boasts the world’s largest collection of Egyptian relics, second only to that of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but it was poorly organised when I first visited. But when I went again in November 2012, together with my wife Irma, it was a very different story. Earlier that year, the museum had been completely transformed following a €50 million revamp and it is now a breathtaking experience, especially the large hall with statues and sphynxes.
These treasures discovered in the land of the pharaohs were brought to Italy in different epochs. In the Royal Hall – behind secure glass – are exhibited some of the most beautiful Egyptian papyri in the world; it was these which, together with others, helped in the eventual deciphering of the extraordinary hieroglyphs – the incised pictorial signs used in the formal writing system that existed during the reign of pharaohs.
The large papyri behind secure glass in Turin’s Egyptian Museum. Photo: WikipediaAnd in Krakow
Last December, my wife and I spent a week’s holiday in Krakow, Poland. Among its various historical and cultural attractions we visited the city’s Archaeological Museum. It is the oldest museum in Krakow, housed in a complex of rooms that until 1954 served as a prison, and before that, a monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, built in the 17th century. Among the museum’s five major exhibitions is one dedicated to the gods of ancient Egypt – a collection of objects related to everyday life and art of the people of ancient Egypt.
The sarcophagus from the 21st dynasty that belonged to the wife of a priest of Amon, named Nesy-Chonsu. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
Sarcophagi and mummies forming part of the Egyptian collection in Krakow’s Archaeological Museum. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
Although the number of sarcophagi and mummies is small, the museum boasts the world’s oldest sarcophagus and one of the first Egyptian artefacts in Krakow – a sarcophagus from the 21st dynasty that belonged to the wife of a priest of Amon, named Nesy-Chonsu. There are also mummified cats and birds which, together with other animals like monkeys |and oxen, were offered as sacrifices or placed in the sarcophagus with the dead to serve as food in the afterlife.
Statuettes found in a wooden box in the collection ‘Gods of Ancient Egypt’ in the Archaeological Museum of Krakow. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
A sarcophagus – case and lid – with the mummy found in it in between, in the Egyptian collection in the Archaeological Museum in Krakow. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
A funerary mask in Krakow’s Archaeological Museum. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
The upper part of the lid of a sarcophagus in the Archaeological Museum of Krakow. Photo: Joe Zammit Ciantar
These sarcophagi, mummies and other ancient Egyptian relics proudly displayed in museum collections around the world offer a taste of the world of pharaohs that have been discovered to date. They enable visitors to appreciate and learn about the daily life, civil organisation, customs, art, beliefs and history of this ancient yet sophisticated people who lived in Egypt in the times of the pharaohs 5,000 years ago.