After Ganpati and before Jesus comes visiting us this year, we have another visitor Mumbai – someone traveling in to meet us from 300 centuries back! A 2800 years old Egyptian Mummy, the Nesperennub, the most traveled mummy in the world is in the city.
Image Courtesy: economictimes.indiatimes.com
Linen wrapped dead bodies preserved for afterlife have always been objects of immense mystery and intrigue for modern civilization along with the fascinating secrets that they have hidden for hundred years. Some mysteries of the civilization that still baffles us is set to unravel this year-end as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly known as Prince of Wales Museum) in collaboration with British Museum and under the sponsorship of Reliance Foundation and BP is opening its gates to an unique exhibition called Mummy-The Inside Story.
As part of the exhibition a 20-minute 3D film on Nesperennub, who in his lifetime was an important priest of the temple of Karnak near the Egyptian city of Luxor, is screened every half hour from 10.30 am to 5.30 pm. The film is played alternately in English and Hindi and it explains the complex process of mummification and what possibly could have been the life of Nesperennub, throwing light on the fascinating life and times of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The brains, for example, used to be extracted without cutting the skull by the use of metal hooks through the nose. The film also shows the mummy’s inside secrets, through modern, non-invasive imaging techniques such as CT scans and X-rays. The mummy is also accompanied by the cat and Ibis mummies, ancient vessels and apparatus (a set of canopic jars) that hold the organs in the pyramid accompanied by texts.
Image Courtesy: economictimes.indiatimes.com
The exhibition will have on display around 110 Egyptian artifacts — original and replicas — and four original mummies, Nesperennub being one of them. This is the first time that an original Egyptian mummy is on display in India and is being held as part of the artistic and cultural collaboration between India and Britain that was signed in July, 2010.
When: Open to public till January 20, 2013. | 10:15 a.m. to 05:30 p.m. on all museum open days
Where: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja Vastu Sangrahalaya
Tickets: Adult Rs. 50/- per head | Child Rs. 10/- per head
Go Mumbai and let us know how did the virtual history tour go! Trust us its way more fun that those classroom ones.
Blogger: Reshmy Pillai
Story seeker - anytime, anyplace; after all stories are not always necessarily found in books. Chain reader, writer, blogger, books reviewer.
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