Ancient Egypt. The art of immortality. The results of the study of mummies and monuments of ancient Egyptian art from the collection of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin, Moscow Automatic translate

Large-scale exhibition “Ancient Egypt. The art of immortality. The results of the study of mummies and monuments of ancient Egyptian art from the collection of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin, Moscow,” which will combine multimedia technologies with authentic ancient Egyptian exhibits, will clearly tell visitors to museums in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod about how the Egyptians imagined eternal life after death.

Mummies are one of the symbols of Ancient Egypt. They became an object of scientific interest at the end of the 19th century. Their research using natural scientific methods has long been carried out in museums around the world. At the beginning of the 20th century, along with unfolding, which irreversibly damaged mummies, their non-destructive study began using radiography. Nowadays, computed tomography has been added to it, which is now widely used in museum practice.

As part of a joint project of the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin and the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" for the first time in Russia, computed tomographic scanning was carried out on 10 whole human mummies, several animal mummies and fragments of mummies from the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin. The resulting CT images were analyzed by anthropologists, criminologists, and radiologists. Scientists saw the mummies “from the inside” and penetrated the swaddling cloth without destroying it. Microsamples of bones, teeth and hardened embalming substances were taken from several mummies for paleogenetic and chemical analyses. Museum researchers studied the features of swaddling and decoration of mummies, clarifying the dating.

Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin has the largest collection of ancient Egyptian art in Russia. The exhibition features about 90 exhibits from the museum’s storerooms - a wooden painted sarcophagus, canopic jars, reliefs, statues and figurines, fragments of mummy decor, bronze sculptures, artistic crafts and amulets.

The central place in the exhibition will be occupied by 3D reconstructions of the appearance of ancient Egyptians - a young woman 20–25 years old and a man 30–40 years old. These “coming to life” mummies provide an opportunity to imagine what the inhabitants of the long-vanished Nile Valley civilization looked like.

Preserved for eternal existence by the hands of skilled embalmers, mummies reveal the secret of immortality, as the ancient Egyptians understood it.

The exhibition will consist of several sections that highlight different aspects of the complex set of Egyptian ideas about immortality and eternal life:

Materiality of immortality. The Egyptians imagined eternal life after death in a very material way. It was necessary to preserve the body, build a tomb, and fill it with objects important for life. An integral element of this world was the mummy. The flesh of the deceased was supposed to remain incorruptible and, with the help of ritual, be transformed into an eternal body, like the god Osiris. The centerpiece of this section is a painted wooden sarcophagus that belonged to an Egyptian named Irethorerer. Like other sarcophagi, it served as protection for the mummy and protected it from destruction. Next to it are four stone vessels for storing embalmed internal organs (canopic jars). An important exhibit of the section is the upper part of the sacrificial table with an inscription carved on it, which talks about what the Egyptians expected in eternity as a gift from the gods - “the earth and everything in it.”

Theology of immortality. The key figure in Egyptian ideas about eternal life is the ruler of the underworld, Osiris. The embalming ritual repeats the story of Osiris, the first to die, mummified and resurrected. This section of the exhibition presents figurines of the divine triad - Osiris, Isis and their son Horus. For a full-fledged existence in the afterlife, the ritual of “opening the lips and eyes” was necessary - the magical revival of the mummy immediately before burial. The main exhibit of the section is a relief block from a noble’s tomb depicting a funeral procession that ends with this ritual.

The monumentality of immortality. The tomb was perceived by the ancient Egyptians as a special double world, filled with images - statues, wall reliefs and paintings. All images were considered doubles - "Ka" - of real people and things. Only members of the social elite could afford to build a tomb. The tomb was not only a resting place for the mummy and food sacrifices, but also a real monument to the deceased. The deceased was glorified as a worthy member of society. In this section of the exhibition there is a “false” door and an altar as the most significant cult elements of the tomb; statue of the Egyptian Nefermen holding a stele with a hymn to the solar god Ra.

Aesthetics of immortality. Eternal life in the afterlife seemed to the Egyptians even more beautiful than earthly life. Proof of this is the many beautiful objects that once filled the tombs and are now kept in museums. An inexhaustible source of inspiration for the Egyptians was the nature around them, created by the gods at the beginning of time. This is demonstrated by the exhibits presented in the section depicting the inhabitants and plants of the water element that gives life. No less important was the image of a beautiful Egyptian woman, inextricably linked with ideas about beauty, youth, vitality, sensual love, external attractiveness, and continuation of life. Three deities were “responsible” for these spheres of human existence in the ancient Egyptian pantheon - Hathor, Bastet and Bes. Their figurines, as well as objects associated with their cult, will be presented in this section of the exhibition.