The new Grand Egyptian Museum is laid out representing the three kingdoms of ancient Egypt – old, middle and new, and upper and lower Egypt, combining 32 dynasties. Room after room, row after row of coffins, statues, sarcophagus’, and artifacts, many dating back almost 5000 years. It was incredible!

Many of the statues have black crystal and ivory in the centre of the eye and oxidized copper around the edges. It looked like the eyes were following us. This guy was especially freaky looking. Talk about supporting a supernatural-ish type of civilization.

Mummification (a process of preserving the body) was only done for pharaohs, royalty, rich people, scribes and priests. It was done using salt from the western desert, henna and other ingredients that were kept secret to maintain the exclusivity of it (call it job security). The body was laid out on a stone slab, cut from left to right (to avoid cutting into the liver). The intestines, liver, stomach and lungs were removed, washed, treated and wrapped in linens and placed in a special (often alabaster pot) and put outside of the coffin. The brain was also removed by inserting a rod up through the nose, mashing up the brain and extracting it back through the nose. It was also placed in a pot and put beside the coffin. The heart was removed, washed and placed back inside the body (because it needed to go with the body for their journey to the afterlife). The belief was that a person‘s heart was judged to see where they would go for the afterlife. After 70 days the body was ready for burial.

King Tutankhamen’s tomb is the only tomb to be found completely intact. It had over 5000 priceless artefacts in it. The poundage of pure gold entombed with him must’ve been astronomical. His sarcophagus had three gold coffins inside, the innermost one alone weighing 240 pounds of solid gold. The mask covering his face was 22 pounds of pure gold. He was around nine when he became king and he died when he was 19. As both of his children died, he was the last of his dynasty. A contributing factor may have been because his parents were brother and sister and he himself married his half-sister. Different time different rules it seems.

Many of the statues are carved in black basalt, pink granite, or a stone called diorite. Diorites strength is equal to the diamond and it’s harder than granite. This statue shows Horus, the God of protection (the falcon), who always stays hidden behind the head

The robbers of the tomb of Thuya and Yuya (King Tut’s grandparents) removed the linens covering their faces so their coffins were open. In respect for the dead, they were the only opened coffins in the museum.

I wanted to post more pictures but had trouble uploading them. Tomorrow we are off to the pyramids.