UK’s first Egyptian animal mummies show coming to World Museum

Posted by Mark Langshaw in Around the City, Art, Galleries, Latest News, Lifestyle News Sep, 23 2016 No Comments

An exhibition exploring ancient Egyptian animal mummies is set to open at the World Museum in Liverpool next month.

Animal Mummies Revealed, the first show of its kind in Britain, launches on Friday 14 October and runs until 26 February 2017.

Mummified specimens including jackals, crocodiles, cats and birds will be displayed alongside artwork, photographs and ancient Egyptian artefacts when the exhibition opens.

Travel journals and archive material will document how the specimens were discovered and preserved, and visitors will also have the chance to see a diary written by William Wilde, the father of renowned writer Oscar Wilde, who travelled to Egypt on tour.

World Museum’s senior curator of antiquities, Dr Ashley Cooke, says: “The exhibition dispels common notions that animals were considered to be living deities. Evidence following their discovery by archaeologists in the late 19th and early 20th century, shows that they were farmed, and sacrificing them was a business.

“Scientific study incorporating modern X-ray machines and scanning techniques revealed that what was sacrificed, wasn’t always what it seemed. We found that some mummies were made up of more than one animal.”

Animal Mummies Revealed features 12 specimens in total, taken from a variety of UK collections including World Museum’s own.