World Culture Galleries

Galleries of Africa: Egypt

Level 3, Philosophers' Walk Wing
The gallery features approximately 1,650 objects from the ROM's impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts and explores nearly 5,000 years (4000 BC - AD 400) of Egyptian history. Among the broad range of objects on display are agricultural tools, everyday eating utensils, magnificent jewellery, funerary furnishings, pottery and mummies. The gallery also includes two video kiosks on pyramids and hieroglyphics.

The centre of the gallery uses objects found in temples and tombs to chronologically trace landmark events from the Predynastic Period (4000 - 3100 BC), when the Nile was populated by small agricultural communities, to Egypt's invasion by a succession of foreign powers in the Late Period (1085 BC - AD 324). The artistic and technical evolution of objects and the development of the people who produced them is a key component of this section. Among the highlights are stone relief fragments (1379 - 1362 BC) from the New Kingdom. Commissioned by the "heretic" pharaoh Akhenaten to decorate his temples to the sun-god, Aten, they convey his belief in a single god.

The perimeter of the gallery explores the many facets and products of Egyptian daily life, ranging from agriculture, metalwork and glass, to shrines and offerings, household furnishings, and cosmetics.

The Ancient Egyptians expressed an extraordinary interest in the afterlife. Central to their religious beliefs was mummification. Osiris, god of the dead and symbol of immortality, is seen on some of the seven mummy coffins in the gallery. Of these, one of the finest is the mummy case of Djedmaatesankh, a female musician in the temple of Amun-Re in Thebes. The only open coffin in the gallery, constructed of plaster and painted wood, belongs to Antjau, believed to have been a wealthy landowner or trader.

Along with the mummies, this section on the beliefs of Ancient Egyptians includes canopic jars, created to hold bodily organs; finely-painted mummy masks; mummified animals; and shawabties, magical figures placed in tombs to work in the afterlife in the place of the deceased. The papyrus fragments from the Book of the Dead, which Egyptians called, the "Book of Coming Forth in the Daytime" is currently being restored.  The full scroll represents a collection of spells buried with the deceased and used to help them attain bliss in the Field of Reeds (heaven/paradise).

The final section is devoted to an expedition or trade mission to the land of Punt, located to the south of Egypt. On display is a rare cast of the wall sculptures depicting the Voyage to Punt from the mortuary temple of Egypt's great female pharaoh, Queen Hatshepsut (1503 - 1482 BC). The casts were taken in 1905 by the first director of the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Dr. C.T. Currelly. The wall sculptures depict vividly detailed trees, beasts, fish and other riches discovered by the Egyptians upon their arrival in Punt. A sound installation complements the display.

Podcasts

Bringing the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead to Life
June 23, 2008
Roberta Shaw, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Arts & Culture, introduces the restoration project of the ROM’s Book of the Dead of Amen-em-hat. A team from the University of Bonn worked throughout May 2008 to piece together this rare ancient Egyptian papyrus dating to about 320 BC.

Video Podcast (21.4MB, 6m 03s)
Written Transcript (PDF)