POTD: Resting Place of Kings

From 2019 11 24 Egyptian Museum

Thuya's outer coffin, 18th Dynasty, ca 1375 BCE

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Or perhaps I should call it the old Egyptian Museum. According to a story in Saturday's Washington Post, "It was a parade unlike any other this city has seen. A procession of 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies streamed Saturday from downtown Cairo...to a new museum three miles away that represents Egypt’s future as much as its past."

Today's photo-of-the-day was taken in the old museum. It shows one of many, many ancient royal coffins on display in the crowded, old museum, along many other artifacts. There is a separate room with the royal mummies themselves (photographs not allowed). The mummified kings are jammed side by side and head to toe. The new museum will have room to more respectfully present these ancient kings, but I'll regret their departure from the 19th century museum. It had the look and feel that an old, haunted museum has in my imagination. We drove by the new museum, under construction at the time, and I fear visiting it will be more like a Disney experience. Long live the old.