Golden Mummies of Egypt presents eight mummies, all retaining their original portraits and mummy coverings, fully wrapped and untouched since antiquity, and some still in their coffins. Egyptian, from Hawara, Portrait of a bearded man, circa 185–195 C.E., wood, Manchester Museum, © 2020 Manchester Museum / Michael Pollard Photographer Each was made using a mixture of hot wax and pigment, creating a stunning, lifelike effect that appeals to modern tastes. Of these, the mummy panels-the so-called Faiyum portraits-are among the most striking images from antiquity. Linen shrouds, plaster or cartonnage portraits, and wooden mummy panels depicted the deceased with Roman hairstyles, garments, and jewelry fashionable at the time. Pharaonic mummy masks were just the start. Egyptian, from Hawara, Mummy of a woman called Isaious (detail), 1st century C.E., human remains, linen, plaster, and gold leaf, Manchester Museum, © 2020 Manchester Museum / Michael Pollard Photographer Thus the act of covering an object in gold was thought to provide magical protection. Gold’s glittering quality also symbolized the reflection of the sun’s rays and was associated with the sun god, Ra, who was reborn every morning. Resembling a deity was a powerful aid to achieving eternal life, as gods in Egypt were thought to be immortal.

Instead they are representations of the deceased, eternally beautiful and idealized, shown with characteristics of Egyptian deities said to have skin of gold and hair of lapis lazuli (a blue, semiprecious stone). Made of painted and gilded cartonnage-which is like papier mâché-the mummy masks are not meant to hide or obscure the face of the departed, as the word mask implies.

Egyptian, from Hawara, Mummy mask, 332–30 B.C.E., plaster and linen, Manchester Museum, © 2020 Manchester Museum / Michael Pollard Photographer Instead, intricately wrapped mummies were decorated with images of Egyptian funerary deities and amuletic symbols that offered protection against the various dangers on the path to the afterlife as well as hauntingly beautiful portraits or arresting plaster or cartonnage mummy masks that gave the deceased the power of sight. The millennia-old sacred art of mummification was still practiced, but the coffins that protected the mummies had largely fallen out of use.

Wealthy members of this multicultural society made elaborate preparations for the afterlife, combining Egyptian, Greek, and Roman ideals of eternal beauty. However, the Egyptian afterlife offered them the possibility of being reborn into a bright, perfected version of this world, to join Osiris, the god of rebirth and ruler of the underworld, and to live for eternity. Greeks and Romans had rather bleak expectations for an existence after death.

Gold mummy mask