The Egyptian Gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which has been closed for refurbishment since September 2004, is due to re-open on May 27 2006.
Comprising three rooms, the revamped gallery will now explore the lives of Egyptian kings and the ordinary people of Ancient Egypt, as well as the fascinating process of death, burial and the other funerary rituals of the Ancient Egyptians.
With the earliest pieces in the Fitzwilliam collection dating from about 3100 BC, the original remit was to improve its display. However the refurbishment has also given staff at the museum a valuable chance to look at the conservation issues that needed to be dealt with.
“It gave us a great chance to examine the items in ways we’d not been able to before,” said Helen Strudwick, Outreach Officer and the gallery’s Egyptian expert.
Many modern techniques have only become available since the cases were first put on display some 40 years ago, and as a result of the museum’s investigations, new information is to be provided for visitors.
Some of the information has been gained in fascinating ways. For instance, some mummies from the collection were scanned at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge.
Scans enabled the conservators to look in detail at the cartonnage of the mummies, the linen or papyrus used to form a case for the mummified body. It was discovered to be often only a few millimetres thick and had been originally split open by 19th century explorers.
The exhibition now includes fascinating information about the intricate process of cartonnage, which involved layering pieces of linen with animal glue and drying it to form a sort of coffin. This was then painted and visitors will be able to see a finished example in the display of the mummy of Nakhtefmut, dating from approximately 925 – 890 BC.
The new exhibition also includes mummies of a hawk, a kitten and an ibis which would have been sacrificed as offerings to different gods. A state of the art environmental monitoring system has been installed in the gallery to help preserve them.
Helen also explained how the refurbishment has allowed staff to examine a coffin made of Cedar of Lebanon and see how the hieroglyphics on it had been altered. This indicates that the occupant was promoted between the coffin being made and him dying.
Staff discovered many holes in the wood, suggesting it had been used as something else before being made into a coffin. This early example of recycling was down to the wood being imported and expensive.
One of the most impressive pieces remains the lid of the tomb of Rameses III from the Valley of the Kings. Made of solid granite, it was originally transported along the Nile for about 150 miles before being dragged another seven miles to its resting place.
Visitors will be able to view the lid in the centre of the first Egyptian room at The Fitzwilliam - the base currently resides in The Louvre in Paris.
The museum will be running Egyptian themed events for adults and children during the week from May 27 to June 2 2006, including mummy-making (bring your own cuddly toy to mummify!), cartonnage and bookmaking.
The project to improve the Egyptian Galleries at the Fitzwilliam Museum has been funded by various groups and individuals, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museum and Galleries Improvement Fund, the Garfield Weston Foundation and The Getty Foundation.
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