Birmingham: The
Birmingham City Museum
has three human mummies, plus a
cat and bird mummy. Thanks to Mark Simmons (for this and many of
the UK entries that follow).
Blackburn: The
Blackburn City Museum has
a female mummy.
Bolton: The
Bolton Museum has
a male and a female Egyptian mummy on display. The museum also has a
number of uncataloged animal mummies.
Bournemouth: Be
Careful, according to Mark Simmons. A private exhibit called Magic of the Mummies?
is
"a cheap and nasty replica exhibition...the "mummies"
are store dummies covered in first aid bandages. Laughable !
Unfortunately, they never point out in their publicity that it's all
amateurish replicas." To be avoided....
Bristol: The
City of Bristol Art Museum displays
9 Egyptian mummies, including Horemkenesi (20th Dynasty).
Cambridge: The
Fitzwilliam Museum has three mummies: one male and two cats. The display may be
old-fashioned, but it's still nice. Also on display is a huge
scarcopaghus lid of Ramesses III.
Dorchester: The
Tutankhamum Exhibition displays
only replicas, though they are well done. It also includes a a tomb
tableau. Mark Simmons writes: "Worth popping in if you are in the
area, but I wouldn't make a special journey. Enjoyed it when I was
14."
Exeter: The
Royal Albert Memorial Museum "has
an Egyptian mummy case, which compares favorably with the one at
Bristol, but I am not positive if it also contains a mummy (I think it
does, but I can't remember from my last visit to Exeter)." The
museum which also has a ethnographic collection, displays a shrunken
head as part of this exhibit. (Thank you Dr. Dig, Caroline
Nicholson.)
Hull: The
West Riding Museum and Art Gallery has
an education center with original 1920's replicas of the treasures
from King Tut's tomb. Although the museum's collection includes
two Egyptian mummies, they are no longer displayed because they are no
longer well-preserved.
Leeds: The
City Museum and Art Gallery exhibits Natsuf-Amum, the keeper of the Royal Bulls. The museum once had many
more mummies, but was hit by an incendiary bomb in WW2, and only
"good old Netty" survived. His coffin is excellent.
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The
MUMMY TOMBS
TOP 10!
Liverpool: The
Liverpool Museum has
18 human Egyptian mummies, though not all are no display. The
collection also has over 70 animal mummies. Highly recommended.
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Liverpool: The
University Museum in
Liverpool also has a few animal mummies.
London:
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The
MUMMY TOMBS
TOP 10!
The
British Museum has
three rooms of Egyptian mummies (recently remodeled and reopened) and
a display of one of the most famous bog bodies: the
Lindow Man. The museum's Egyptian
mummy collections include approximately 78 humans and over 80
animals. This is a "don't miss"
collection.
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Also
in London is the Tower
of London.
And
while you wouldn't expect to find a mummy in a medieval castle, you
would be wrong. Only the mummy is not that of a medieval person, it's
of a rodent. It is displayed in St. Paul's Chapel (look closely in one
of the glass display cases along the inner wall, because it's easy to
miss) as an example of evidence that the King's written documents were
not properly maintained in the 1800s (after all, how could a rodent
end up dead with important documents of State?).
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The
MUMMY TOMBS
TOP 10!
Manchester: The
Manchester Museum (formerly
University Museum) has one of the best displays
in the world. Plus with Dr. Rosalie David as keeper of Egyptology and
prolific author, you
can read in great detail about many of the mummies you will see. Highly recommended.
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Newcastle: The
Hancock Museum displays
two mummies and has a permanent exhibition called "The Land of
the Pharaohs."
Oxford: The
Ashmolean Museum has
nine Egyptian mummies, along with thousands of artifacts
"crammed into 1930's style cases, and a complete stone tomb
(shrine complex)." Mark Simmons writes that it's a "bit
confusing for the non-specialist, but well worth the effort. "
When I visited in February 2003, only two mummies were on
display, but they were well worth the visit.
Also in Oxford is the Pitt
Rivers Museum which
displays two Egyptian mummies. The museum is also famous for its
shrunken-head collection. Mark Simmons notes that its an "unusual
place, as the displays are kept as they were in the 19th century...a
bit like wandering around a store-room."
