When I got to the Art Institute's Egyptian gallery, a tour guide was holding a small group of children captive, as she discussed a colorful mummy:
(From museum website) "Ancient Egyptian beliefs in the afterlife gave rise to the complex art and science of mummification. This vividly painted Mummy Case was the innermost of a series of shells that housed the body of a deceased person. The hieroglyphic inscriptions and painted scenes identify this mummy as Paankhenamun, a doorkeeper in the temple of the god Amun. The central scene shows the hawk-headed god Horus presenting Paankhenamun to Osiris, ruler of the afterlife." |
(From museum website) The hieroglyphic text above Horus reads: "A royal offering of Osiris, presider over the West, the great god, lord of Abydos, Wennofer, ruler of Eternity. Utterance by Horus, the son of Osiris, the great god, lord of the sky; may he give a mortuary offering of food and viands, oxen and geese, incense, clothing and every good and pure thing for Osiris, the doorkeeper of the estate of Amun, Paankhenamun, deceased, son of Ainka, the doorkeeper of the estate of Amun, deceased, son of Ankhefenkhonsu." |