Mummy on display at Albert Hall museum
A mummy from Egypt has been put on display at the at the state museum in Albert Hall on World Heritage Day (April 18) on Tuesday.
The mummy of Tutu was installed at Albert Hall at the time of its establishment by Émile Brugsch, the then curator of the Cairo museum.
Tutu is a female member of a priest’s family, dating to Egypt’s Ptolemaic period (322 to 30 BC). Tutu’s mummy was found at Akhmin, Panopolis which is modern day Egypt, a release from the museum said.
The exhibition also shares information on the rulers of Egypt, their traditional gods and their philosophies about body and soul.
The exhibition showcased a wooden hammer (dated 37053500 BC), toiletries box (1300-1200 BC), enamel idols (1567-322 BC), bronze idols of Egyptian gods and goddesses, jewelry, amulets (644-322 BC), footwear ( 322-30 BC), mud statues and incense burner (30 BC- 640 AD) and glassware (1-3 AD).
The foundation stone of Albert Hall was laid by the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, during his visit to Jaipur in 1876. At that time, the purpose of the building the hall had not decided. In 1880, Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II approved surgeon Dr Thomas Holbein Hendley’s suggestion to open a museum of industrial arts at the Albert Hall to display products of local craftsmen.
The lid of Tutu’s mummy showed a winged scarab beetle, a symbol of resurrection in afterlife, flanked by heads of the principal deity, the falcon god Horus with solar disks. Below it is a wide bead collar down to the waist and a winged goddess for protection.
Further down, three panels show women flanking the mummy on a funeral bed, three seated figures of the judges of the underworld and four sons of Horus, divine guardians of the cardinal points, bearing human, jackal, baboon and falcon heads.
The lower plaque covering the legs shows the god Anubis holding down the mummy and assisting in its embalming and mummification. Anubis, who has a jackal’s head, was the god of cemeteries and embalming and conducted the souls to his father Osiris, lord of the Underworld, for judgment in afterlife. Below the bed are five vases for holding viscera, Four genies are also present.
The text on the sides read, ‘Anubis lord of Necropolis’ and ‘Giving protection to the Osiris (reborn) Tutu’.