Tiny mummy awes tiny guests at ROM - The tiny, mummified body wrapped in a shroud at the Royal Ontario Museum is displayed at a level tailored to short people — of which there are many on a weekday.
Scores of elementary schoolchildren accompanied by teachers and parents on educational outings stare into a glass case holding the wrapped remains of an Egyptian baby, gender unknown but believed to be about 2,000 years old.
“I’ve never seen a mummy that small,” said Christine Esteron, 9, who’s in Grade 4 at St. Monica Catholic School.
Students from St. Monica Catholic School take time out on their field trip to look at an Egyptian mummy baby on display at the Royal Ontario Museum on Monday, Feb. 7, 2011. The shroud surrounding the 2,000-year-old baby has never been opened.
The infant mummy hasn’t been on public view since the 1950s. It is on display only until Feb. 27, inside a sealed case with humidity control on level one of Canada Court, as part of the ROM’s ongoing Out of the Vault series.
“I think it’s pretty cool but I think they should take the shroud off,” said Michael Anthony Perrella, 11, a Grade 6 student at St. Cosmas and Damian Catholic School.
That isn’t going to happen, Dan Rahimi, vice-president of gallery development at the ROM, told the Star.
“We honour the dead the way the Egyptians did,” he said. “We’re not going to interfere with the body unless there’s a really good scientific reason . . . it’s a sign of respect.”
According to the ROM, the well-preserved shroud’s colourful symbols and images speak of parental love and show the baby being embraced by the jackal god Anubis while a grieving parent makes offerings to its spirit.
Another mummified infant that the ROM has in storage was “never wrapped,” said Rahimi. “It’s hard to look at.”
It’s one of several exhibits not normally seen by the public, but which were recently seen on a segment of History Television’s Museum Secrets. The mummy on view was acquired in 1910 by the museum’s first curator, Charles Currelly, an archeologist who worked in Egypt, Rahimi said. In the 1800s and early part of the 20th century, it was not uncommon for people doing “grand tours” of Egypt to purchase mummies as “souvenirs,” he said.
Once the tiny mummy on view is put back in storage, it’s “hard to say” when it will be out again, Rahimi said. ( thestar.com )
Scores of elementary schoolchildren accompanied by teachers and parents on educational outings stare into a glass case holding the wrapped remains of an Egyptian baby, gender unknown but believed to be about 2,000 years old.
“I’ve never seen a mummy that small,” said Christine Esteron, 9, who’s in Grade 4 at St. Monica Catholic School.
Students from St. Monica Catholic School take time out on their field trip to look at an Egyptian mummy baby on display at the Royal Ontario Museum on Monday, Feb. 7, 2011. The shroud surrounding the 2,000-year-old baby has never been opened.
“I think it’s pretty cool but I think they should take the shroud off,” said Michael Anthony Perrella, 11, a Grade 6 student at St. Cosmas and Damian Catholic School.
That isn’t going to happen, Dan Rahimi, vice-president of gallery development at the ROM, told the Star.
“We honour the dead the way the Egyptians did,” he said. “We’re not going to interfere with the body unless there’s a really good scientific reason . . . it’s a sign of respect.”
According to the ROM, the well-preserved shroud’s colourful symbols and images speak of parental love and show the baby being embraced by the jackal god Anubis while a grieving parent makes offerings to its spirit.
Another mummified infant that the ROM has in storage was “never wrapped,” said Rahimi. “It’s hard to look at.”
It’s one of several exhibits not normally seen by the public, but which were recently seen on a segment of History Television’s Museum Secrets. The mummy on view was acquired in 1910 by the museum’s first curator, Charles Currelly, an archeologist who worked in Egypt, Rahimi said. In the 1800s and early part of the 20th century, it was not uncommon for people doing “grand tours” of Egypt to purchase mummies as “souvenirs,” he said.
Once the tiny mummy on view is put back in storage, it’s “hard to say” when it will be out again, Rahimi said. ( thestar.com )
No comments:
Post a Comment