Ancient Egypt

The Museum is lucky enough to hold over 400 artefacts from Ancient Egypt, the core of which form the permanent Egyptology exhibition in the Explorers Gallery.

The exhibits offer a brief view of life in the Nile Valley of Ancient Egypt from the pre-dynastic period (3200BC) to the last Coptic Christians (AD 400) and offer the opportunity to discover more about the chronology, geography, daily life, beliefs, burial practices and writing of these extraordinary people.

The collection includes some very interesting items, including the mummified body of a young boy from around 600 BC and an anthropoid coffin complete with inscription dating to the New Kingdom, which is one of the finest coffins in a regional Museum in the UK. The mummy of the boy has been scanned and x-rayed to determine his age (thought to be between 2 & 4 years old) and mummification technique and this information helped to create a reconstruction of him which now stands within the gallery. Recent research on his coffin has shown it to be a very high-status reuse from the early 18th Dynasty, whose previous occupant may have been the child of Royalty.

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