Ancient Egypt Gallery I Louisiana Art & Science Museum

One of few permanent Ancient Egypt exhibits in the Gulf South region, the Louisiana Art & Sciences Museum’s Ptolemaic-era mummy display was reinterpreted with new scholarship and an updated design. The mummy was acquired in 1964. In 2006, new forensic information was obtained through X-rays courtesy of LSU’s Faces Lab directed by Mary Manheim and CT scans provided by St. Elizabeth’s Hospital under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Elias with the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium. This vital information “humanized” the mummy by providing age, sex, and likely cause of death.

The Faces Lab used the mummy’s facial bone structure to provide a likeness of what the mummy might have resembled in life. Similarly, Dr. Elias made a portrait bust of the LASM mummy and donated one to LASM.

After the reopening, an annual lecture series took place through a partnership with the nascent Louisiana Interest Group of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) begun by Dr. Melinda Nelson-Hurst at Tulane University. Among the notable speakers were: Salima Ikram, American University in Cairo; Dr. Nigel Strudwick, University of Memphis; Dr. Aidan Dodson, University of Bristol, UK; and Nicholas Picardo, Harvard University.