Egypt

Nelson Gallery acquires ancient Egyptian funerary display

Kansas City Star

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has announced a prominent new resident. At 8 feet tall she could come to be known as a Wonder Woman, but don’t call her “Mummy Dearest.”

The museum’s multimillion-dollar acquisition is a spectacular painted coffin of a noblewoman named Meretites created in Egypt 2,500 years ago. It did not come equipped with its human remains, but is part of an assemblage including a large outer coffin made to hold it and more than 300 other funerary objects that accompanied its inhabitant to the netherworld.

The museum spent two years working to acquire the ensemble, one of the finest of its type for its quality and state of preservation.

“She’s a celebrity, a rock star,” said Marc Wilson, the Nelson’s director and CEO.

And it’s rare, he said: “There’s not been an assemblage on the market since the 1920s.”

The museum will put the pieces on public view in 2010 in new specially designed galleries in the antiquities department.

In the meantime they will be the subject of a significant conservation study funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The study is likely to yield new information about some rare, toxic pigments used in the coffin design, said Kate Garland, the Nelson’s senior conservator.

See the above page, with a photograph, for more.

- Coffin Reveals Secret Past Of Mummified 'royal Boy'
This is South Devon A 2,500-year-old mummified boy, who is a star draw at Devon's oldest museum, has unexpectedly been put in the shade – by the very coffin in which he lies. Ever since he went on show as part of a major revamp at Torquay Museum...

- Nelson-atkins And Others Collaborate To Unearth The Secrets Of A Mummy
examiner.com (Paul Proffett Jr) This summer, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, a prominent local cardiologist, and an Egyptian anthropologist have all taken part in a unique collaboration to...

- Modern Science Reveals Secrets Of 2,500-year-old Mummy
Digital Journal A powerful image of the face of a 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has been created by special agents/forensic artists from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), as unveiled...

- Opening Of Egyptian Galleries At The Nelson-atkins
InfoZine A spectacular 2,300-year-old collection of funerary objects from an Egyptian tomb will be the centerpiece of new Egyptian galleries that open May 8 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Among the objects is an elaborately decorated, 7-foot inner...

- Ethical Questions Haunt Museums’ Acquisition Of Antiquities
KansasCity.com (Steve Paul) When the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art announced last year that it had acquired a colorful, ancient Egyptian coffin, officials presented a small sheaf of paperwork affirming that all was on the up and up. This was no back-door,...

Egypt