Visit to the Egyptology Special Exhibition at the Derby Museum.
On Wednesday the 20th November, a small and committed group made its way to the Derby museum to visit the special exhibition.
Despite very bad traffic, the journey was well worth it and we were rewarded with a stimulating and poignant experience. The 80 or so objects only display included many from the museum’s own collection but it was supplemented by artefacts from the Manchester Museum, Liverpool Garstang Museum and the British Museum. Three sets of mummified remains formed the heart of the exhibition: one, the “leftovers” from a Victorian “mummy unwrapping” was simply a selection of rags and dust in a glass jar – perhaps the most thought provoking of the three! The exhibition was meant to create discussion about the rights and wrongs of displaying human remains and in this it was certainly successful.
For me other highlights included a piece of limestone from the outer casing of the Great Pyramid, a painted chest with Hapy clearly readable, CT scans of the mummies displayed, a torso carrying the cartouche of Ptolemy and the hands of Pasheri poking out from his mummy wrappings – so sad and so personal.
A very good exhibition.
