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Ancient Egypt Magazine Issue One - May / June 2000
The Cairo Museum: Wonderful Things Cairo Museum – the name is compelling. This is a treasure store of ancient Egyptian artefacts. Does it live up to its charismatic reputation? What does the future hold for this premier Egyptology collection? Sue Patrick sees the greatest display of Egyptian artefacts in the world.The first-time visitor to modern Cairo, in search of the ancient, observes that the city has crept out towards the Pyramids, destroying for some people the air of aloof mystery that they imagined would hang over them. This is Cairo’s first and most important lesson. The past never went away. It is still there, all around, in the fabric of the city, its bustle and contrast, in the faces of its people, in the dust of the street.
Inside the museum the exhibits, so many, so varied, bustle at the visitor in a way that is both intimate and overwhelming. The guides are quick to point out that even a brief viewing of every object in the collection would occupy the next nine months. If the visitor refuses to be intimidated by the sheer quantity of objects demanding to be viewed, there comes a further revelation. No matter how many other collections he or she has seen, for the first time it is possible to feel the immense talent, enterprise and creativity of the ancient Egyptians. Their skill in working metal, stone and wood, using tools that we call primitive, astonishes the modern observer. Statues, removed from their original sites, still impress by their scale and a curious living quality that is peculiarly Egyptian. Eyes of crystal gaze over the head of the visitor towards the eternity they believed in. These are magical statues. Their purpose is to substitute, if necessary, for the body of the dead person. The skill of the ancient sculptor is so great that they have taken in some of the soul of the tomb owner.
Many of the visitors have come to see the fabled "Gold of the Pharaohs" and they are not disappointed. Four mighty gold shrines, the greatest larger than a caravan, were placed around the body of King Tutankhamun to protect him from harm. Gold, immutable, imperishable, the noblest of metals, had magical significance and was used in royal burials only, although lesser mortals could aspire, particularly in later times, to gilded coffins and face masks. Gold decorates the hilts of daggers. Gold jewellery contains shaped stones of red carnelian, deep blue lapiz, and brilliant turquoise signifying respectively strength, eternity and happiness. Ancient symbols of life and protection from evil such as the ankh and the eye of Horus are still potent as the huge quantity of gold jewellery bought by visitors shows. Inside the separate temperature controlled gallery that is the latest resting place of some of the royal mummies of ancient Egypt, the atmosphere is appropriately solemn until some curious European teenagers crowd and chatter thoughtlessly around the body of King Sety I. The official is quick to quiet them. They are, after all, in the presence of the illustrious and justified dead, and Sety’s son, Ramesses II, lays claim to being the greatest king of all time. His hands and lower arms, released from the tight pressure of the bandages intended to keep his body shapely and upright, have risen slightly. It is an eery and imploring sight. He is tall, like his father Sety whose handsome features are still the best testament to the skill of ancient Egyptian embalmers. They entered eternity as they wished and hoped, preserved to appear as young and strong as possible. Seqenenre Tao, a king of the earlier 18 th dynasty, did not fare so well. He appears to have died in a violent incident, probably in battle (although a palace coup is possible too), and no embalmer could smooth the fixed look of agony on his battered face.
"Is this original?" asks a disbelieving visitor. He is looking at the clean lines of the furniture of Queen Hetepheres, from the Old Kingdom, over 4,000 years ago. The furniture is gold-covered and carries inscriptions of the queen. Yes, the guide assures him, it is all original. It would not look out of place in a modern design exhibition and reminds us of just how much the world owes to the inspiration of ancient Egypt. And how much Egypt owes to the preserving quality of her dry climate! It is easy to ignore the humbler items such as cases of pottery in the midst of glittering gold, monstrous coffins and lifelike statues. In the 19 th century, pottery was the key to painstakingly constructed chronologies that have, on the whole, stood the test of time. These everyday items also give us our personal links with the past. The ordinary Egyptians were people who ate and drank from pottery vessels and told their kids off when they showed bad table manners in company or when a favourite piece was broken. (Ancient broken pots litter the ground of Egypt to such an extent that one place is known as "Mother of Pots"). They were thrifty, too; children practised their writing skills on the broken pieces.Every piece, however humble, is testament to the ingenuity of the ancient Egyptians and to their complicated, but practical, religious and magical beliefs. Life in Egypt was good, if the gods were obeyed and revered. The River Nile rose and fell annually with regularity providing the fertility that enabled them to live the good life. And so good was this life that they hoped and believed it would continue for them in just such a way after death. Standing in the midst of their possessions, both for this life and the one to come, one hopes that they were right. These items have survived, in some cases, over 5000 years in Egypt’s preserving air, and just over 100 in the elegant but restrictive surroundings of the 19 th century museum building. The great powers of Europe all contributed to the study of Egyptology in the last century. That of France was arguably the earliest, and, some would say, greatest, and the building is part of this legacy. However, modern visitors are more demanding and their sheer numbers, as well as their expectations, create headaches for all museum curators.
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As
one waits to enter the museum, it is hard to shake off this unsettling feeling
that somehow change and constancy are one and the same in Egypt. Lotus and
papyrus, the ancient plant symbols of the upper and lower kingdoms of Egypt, are
maintained in two serene pools side by side yards away from Cairo’s frantic
traffic. "You need a taxi to cross the road!" joke Cairenes, but
playing human dodgems on Cairo’s street crossings is a serious business.
Centrepiece
of the exhibition, and inevitably its most popular haunt, are the galleries
devoted to items from the tomb of Tutankhamun. This minor royal of Egypt’s 18
Further
back in time, the bodies of the kings of the great age of pyramid construction
have not survived, despite the best attempts of their skilful and talented
architects to preserve them under man-made mountains of stone. The only statue
remaining of Cheops, or Khufu, celebrated builder of the Great Pyramid, is a few
centimetres high. The life-sized, sad-featured statue of Djoser, the monarch for
whom the Step Pyramid was built, has been removed from his offering chapel in
his pyramid complex at Saqqara and placed near the entrance hall of the Museum.
A replica now stares out spookily through eyeholes in the little chapel, or
"serdab" at the site of the Step Pyramid.
Modern
problems such as air pollution, visitor numbers and increasing humidity are just
the latest challenges the artefacts have to face. And that they will survive,
and outlast the curious faces reflected in the glass of their exhibit cases, is
certain. 
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