Brief Introduction

The ancient Egyptians spent a great deal of time and effort preparing for the Afterlife, making mummies and providing them with the equipment that would allow them to live forever.  Mummies have been a source of fascination for centuries - witness most recently the success of Universal's remake of "The Mummy."  So what makes a mummy?  What was the most important funerary equipment for a successful afterlife?  Just how much did immortality cost an average or above average ancient Egyptian?  Drawing upon my own work for the recent Mummy movies, and archaeology at Luxor's Theban Necropolis and in Sudanese Nubia, we will explore some modern myths and the fascinating insights we can gain from mummies and their equipment.

Web Resources

Kent Week's Theban Mapping Project http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/ Interactive maps of the Valley of the Kings and loads of info on the Theban Necropolis make this one of the coolest sites around!

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg/home.html and for animal mummies check out http://www.animalmummies.com/

The British Museum http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html for more general thematic presentations and games for children, but for more serious browsing see their online catalog http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ Search for mummies and check out their virtual mummy exhibit tour!

The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Department http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/department.asp?dep=10

The Petrie Museum at University College London http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/

University of Chicago, digital Smith, Royal Mummies. http://enlil.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=DT57.C2_vol59

Everything (and more) you wanted to know about New Kingdom royal mummies, including pics of the mortal remains of Pharaohs and Queens: http://anubis4_2000.tripod.com/mummypages1/introduction.htm

Lots of general info about ancient Egypt at http://members.tripod.com/~ib205/book.html