Mummy Observation Paper

I went to The Chicago Field Museum Saturday March 16th to go see the exhibit "Images of the Afterlife." Which featured mummies from ancient Egypt it featured a bust clay molding of King Tutankhamun which appeared to be the exhibits centerpiece, the clay molding was incredibly detailed, it had almost an eerie feeling to it. It was very lifelike almost as if they chopped off a human above the chest and displayed it. There was also another mummy that had a clay mold of it she is referred to as mummy #30007, unlike the male mummy Tutankhamun which had little to no hair the female mummy had locks of hair, which went down to the start of her chest, she had dark black hair that is braided and bangs that cover her forehead till just above the eyes.
She was believed to be in her 40's who suffered from back pain.
Both mummies from just the clay molding that was displayed appeared to be small short people with what would appear to be an athletic build. King Tutankhamun could in my opinion be passed off as a female mummy that lost all of her hair from just the bust that was displayed. Then there was mummy #111517 who was named Minirdis, who also had a just a head mold that was created of him alongside the head mold was a gelatin skull recreated from a CT scan. They had the images of the CT scan there displayed on TV screens the images were staggering to be how detailed they are considering that the coffins were never opened nor the mummies unwrapped. In some of the CT images you can actually still see the organs inside the mummy, I found it amazing how well the ancient Egyptians preserved the bodies for the afterlife. The one mummy CT scan of Minirdis was placed in a large coffin when he died, it was stated that he died in his teenage years by accident or his death was
unexpected. The room that the exhibit was placed in located on the 2nd floor that was off to the side with closed doors and it was dimly lit, it was also located in one room which was not fairly large like some of the other exhibits in the museum, which to me seemed to set a good ambiance for the exhibit. I wouldn't think that that type of exhibit would be a very bright room basically what we are walking into is a funeral home I kept having to remember that there are human remains that were still there no matter how old they were, they were still human remains. It seemed to me like a intimate exhibit. I picked this exhibit because Egypt has always somewhat interested me I used to watch the Discovery Channel when they would air live specials of revealing a tomb or similar, I have always been amazed on how advanced the Egyptians were back then, how they can build tombs and pyramids and mummify bodies where they last till today and I'm sure they will last hundreds of years to come.
I also picked this exhibit because we read specifically about King Tutankhamun in our book. To read about King Tutankhamun then to actually see staggering images his mummified body and a bust of him in person was awe inspiring. It appears after more research that King Tutankhamun's coffin was on display until January 2007, it would have been amazing if his actually coffin was there at the time of this review. After reading in the book King Tutankhamun's coffin was made out of solid gold. Also his grave was undisturbed when it was discovered by Howard Carter a British archeologist in 1922. Grave robbers back then used to break into the graves of famous Egyptians and rob them because when they were buried they were buried with tons and tons of treasures. The detail from the picture in the book of King Tutankhamun's coffin cover is unbelievable and to believe that someone took the time to make something like that for it to just be buried into a tomb for the afterlife astonishes me and it is made out of solid gold. It just shows how much the ancient Egyptians cared and believed in the afterlife to
bury a great King like they did. This is my review of the exhibit called “Images of the afterlife” at the field museum in Chicago, I think that it both related to what we learned about in class and relative to modern day. I personally think that ancient Egyptian life and afterlife is very interesting and that people should take the time to learn about it, and possibly take things away from how they lived their lives. So I will defiantly recommend this exhibit and ancient Egyptian life to learn about and to study to my friends and family.