The Art of Ancient Egypt

The Room devoted to the art of Ancient Egypt displays about 800 exhibits representing all the periods in the development of the Land of the Pharaohs – from the IV millennium BC to the 4th century BC. They include wooden and stone coffins, statues, reliefs, objects for household use and the funerary rite, mummies of both people and animals, papyri, vessels and jewellery, statues of deities and amulets. The Room itself incorporates architectural elements typical for the Egyptian temples: the ceiling is painted, beams are supported on elegant columns in the shape of papyrus scrolls. This lends the Room a special atmosphere, making the visitor feel straightaway as he enters it, that he is being introduced to Ancient Egyptian art.

The most ancient exhibits in the Egyptian collection of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts are stone tools (c. VI-V millennia BC) and also slate palettes and clay painted vessels from the culture of Naqada I-III (IV millennium BC). Alongside the rich and diverse materials produced on a mass scale – sacrificial offerings from tombs designed to ensure prosperous life after death – the Museum's collection also introduces visitors to outstanding works of Ancient-Egyptian art (including the upper part of a statue of the king of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhet III, figurines of the priest Amenhotep and priestess Rannai and a toilet spoon dating from the New Kingdom).

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Virtual tour (2014)