In Leiden, ancient Egypt feels pretty close

As a boy, I loved visiting the Egyptian department of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. Half in the twilight, the mysterious mummy coffins there stared at me. We are now several decades and exhibits further on. Since this week, the newest Egypt display has been open. Even in bright light, the collection appears to retain its fascinating power. At the same time, in Queens of the Nile the story of women in ancient Egypt, with many special loans.

The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden is revamping its permanent displays in stages. Last year it was classical antiquity's turn, next year's archaeology of the Netherlands and now the new Egypt presentation. The museum owns the well-nigh shocking number of 25,000 objects from Egyptian antiquity; there are now a barely less shocking 1,400 pieces on display.

Back to Sakkara and Abydos

The RMO acquired a large collection as early as the early nineteenth century Egyptica, especially from Sakkara and Abydos. Egypt was in the spotlight after Napoleon's campaigns. It was considered accepted to bring original art. In the 1970s, the museum and Leiden University returned to see if there was anything left that could give the finds more context. To the researchers' surprise, parts of the original find sites were still intact and reliefs from the Leiden collection, for example, could be effortlessly fitted into larger wall scenes.

For the new display, the RMO has chosen an introduction room with the chronology of Egyptian antiquity and four themed rooms. In the latter, we get a window into the world of the gods, the vision of the afterlife, monumental sculpture and the mutual inspiration of Egypt and other cultures.

New purchases

To best tell the various stories, the museum reinstated many former depot pieces and even made some new acquisitions. Thanks to sublime lighting by Chris Pype Licht of Schaarbeek, Belgium, the pieces shine like new and reveal many previously hard-to-see details. In two places, we can enter a temple fragment; here too, the light combined with the use of museum glass makes the thousands of years of time difference practically disappear.

Baby crocodiles

A fascinating new fact came to light when the RMO had two mummies re-scanned with medical equipment. The large crocodile mummy was already found to contain not one, but two crocodiles during an earlier examination. Now it turns out that between the wrappings, the mummy still harbours a huge amount of mummified baby crocodiles. Touch screens show every detail of it. In layers, you can unwrap the wrappings yourself, see the skeleton, the scales and all the cross-sections. The same has been done with a human mummy, which also shows all the attached amulets and jewellery.

As a lifelong RMO visitor, I miss the mummy of a child in the display, long since stripped of its wrappings. The museum has chosen no longer reveal the vulnerable naked boy to prying eyes. Understandable on the one hand, yet unfortunate on the other. As the only unwrapped mummy in the collection, the child showed what tanned skin looks like, how a hole was made in the abdomen to remove the intestines. Above all, it also made it tangible how close a human being over 3,000 years old can be, and that grief and awe of death are of all times.

Queens of the Nile

In fact, after so much information, you might want to see the exhibition Queens of the Nile another time. Spaciously conceived, we see here the heyday of the queens of the New Kingdom in all its facets. The choice of this period excludes celebrities like the Hellenistic Cleopatra, but with queens like Nefertiti and Hatshepsut, we need not mourn that.

The pharaoh was the only Egyptian to have more wives, but his official wife, the Great Queen, maintained direct contact with the gods just like her husband. Also, she controlled the harem and in some cases (e.g. Hatshepsut) even ruled on as pharaoh after the death of her husband. After her death, the Great Queen was buried in the Valley of the Queens, i.e. separated from her husband. The king's and queen's tombs were worked on by craftsmen in a special village, Deir el-Medina. Of these, too, we see raw materials. Also intriguing is the five-metre-long 'conspiracy papyrus', which tells how Pharaoh Ramses III was murdered by a plot from within the harem.

Queen as saint

The exhibition includes many loans, mainly from the Museo Egizio in Turin, as well as reconstructions, for example of one of Queen Nefertari's burial chambers and of a queen's appearance and headdress.

The poster features a small wooden statue of the early queen Ahmose Nefertari. She acquired divine status while still alive and served as an intermediary between man and the higher for many simple Egyptians. And though we should be wary of too easy comparisons, that does feel a bit like the role of saints in Catholicism. Occasionally, ancient Egypt feels quite close.