Mysteries of the Mummies

Why do exhibitions of Egyptian artifacts tend to be so popular with audiences? Perhaps it is because Ancient Egypt is one of the earliest civilizations about which we have a substantial body of information. Maybe the fascination hails from the heroicized accounts of 19th-century tomb excavations or the recent debates about ownership of cultural property. In part, it is the sense of mystery surrounding this complex society that developed more than 5,000 years ago-bolstered by pop culture myths of mummies' curses that keeps visitors enthralled by displays of all things Egyptian. The recent acquisition of a collection of Egyptian artifacts by the Michael C. Carlos Museum (MCCM), Emory University, Atlanta, began with an aura of mystery that engaged the Atlanta community.

     The adventure began in the fall of 1998, when an anonymous entrepreneur from Canada announced he was selling a group of Egyptian objects for $2 million. He had recently purchased the collections of the Niagara Falls Museum, a small private museum in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Egyptian objects had been on display there for more than 100 years, yet they were rarely studied, poorly documented, and never published; few people in the Atlanta community would have known of their existence. Still, the Egyptian collection was known, if only by reputation, among ancient art specialists as an assortment of mummies and funerary items rarely seen outside of Egypt. Peter Lacovara, curator of ancient art at the Carlos Museum, recognized the importance of the collection when a colleague from the Royal Ontario Museum informed him of its availability.

     To see a grouping of 10 mutnmies and 10 caskets up for sale is "extremely rare", says Lacovara, who expressed his interest on behalf of MCCM and traveled to Ontario in November 1998. He met William Jamieson, the entrepreneur who had bought the collection and who describes himself as "a collector who sells the odd piece." An amateur anthropologist and long-time visitor of the Niagara Falls Museum, Jamieson knew the museum's proprietor, whose family had run the institution for the past 57 years, and knew he was ready to sell. The building, which had housed the museum since 1958, was in a state of disrepair, and economic development in the area, spurred primarily by the casino industry, made the land the museum rested on quite valuable. Lacovara describes the Niagara Falls Museum as a dimly lit, turn-of-the-century structure with leaky ceilings. Inside, a hodgepodge of exhibits ranged from Canadian natural history specimens to the first-floor Daredevil Hall of Fame, filled with memorabilia related to those who braved the Falls in barrels or crossed it on tightropes.

     Despite the quirky surroundings, not to mention the effects of more than 130 years of unstable conditions, the 83-object Egyptian collection struck Lacovara as one of quality and beauty. He found some of the mummies and painted coffins to be on par with the best of the great collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where Lacovara was on staff prior to joining MCCM. One of the embalmed corpses is female; another is a baby. ~ one of the mummies might be the pharaoh Ramses I; if that is determined to be the case, it is the only royal mummy outside Egypt. The mummies were accompanied by a variety of objects with which wealthy Egyptians were often buried, including amulets and other jewelry; pottery; bronze sculptures; fragments of relief carvings; and canopic jars, which held the entrails of the deceased. Lacovara knew that if MCCM could acquire the objects he saw before him, the Egyptian collection at the Carlos would be one of the rarest in the United States-not the largest in size but one of the broadest in scope, with objects dating from the Old Kingdom (about 3500 B.C.) through the Roman period (2nd century A.D.).

     The pace of the events that followed was dizzying. Because no Canadian museums were pursuing the collection and Lacovara was the first interested party to view the objects, MCCM had first dibs. The staff had seven weeks to raise the $2 million. MCCM Director of Development David Curry says museum staff started the campaign with the usual "quiet, behind-the-scenes approach" to soliciting support, contacting major corporations and foundations. They secured a substantial donation of $250,000 from the Forward Arts Foundation, but the timeframe was so tight that they couldn't wait for the responses of other potential donors. In the meantime, international museums were contacting Jamieson about the sale. To stay in the running, the museum would have to raise the funds more quickly. In February, says Curry, MCCM Director Anthony Hirschel determined that their only hope was to seek the support of the citizens of Atlanta by going public with their quest to purchase the collection. They did, with the help of Catherine Fox, a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who wrote a series of articles detailing the rare opportunity the museum had to assemble a world-class collection of Egyptian artifacts.

     The museum reports that the next few days were "practically a telethon," as the community responded in an outpouring of donations. Curry says that it was a "true community effort"-the 300-plus contributors included a group of kindergartners who collected $40 and a docent who raised $15,000 by soliciting help from friends. Numerous donors were long-time Atlanta residents who fondly remembered seeing the Carlos Museum's earliest displays of Egyptian artifacts in the 1920s and '3Os. Others were parents whose children had raved about the ancient objects at the museum. In less than three weeks, says Curry, they raised $700,000 from individual donations that ranged from $10 to $100,000. The rest was covered by the museum's board and support from an unnamed foundation. The sale was finalized and approved by the Canadian government in March. "When I arrived at the Carlos Museum a year ago," says Lacovara, "I was hoping to expand the collection. But I didn't think it would happen quite this quickly."

     In May the mummies and accompanying artifacts made their way from Canada to Atlanta. MCCM is still actively fund raising to cover the additional $1.5-million cost of preserving and displaying the objects. "This second phase of the fund-raising process is just as crucial as the first," says Curry, "so that we can do justice to the collection by conserving, researching, and publishing it." Emory University's Center for Molecular Medicine and Emory University Hospital will be involved in long-term studies of the mummies, which will include DNA research and other techniques for gathering human genetic information.

     Even as MCCM staff determine the lineage of the mummies and discover the functions and materials of each artifact-in effect, demystifying the relics- they will simultaneously cultivate the community's excitement about the collection they helped the museum acquire. To keep public interest piqued, the museum began in July a two-year series of six-month rotating exhibits that display the objects in small groupings. A symposium, two lecture series, teacher resources, and family days are already planned. In spring 2001, when the museum aims to have the entire collection cleaned and conserved, these previews will culminate in a major exhibit that the museum has smartly dubbed "Mysteries of the Mummies."

-Amanda Kraus