For the next two years, the Tampa Museum of Art will be home to an eye-opening collection of ancient Egyptian art — the first such exhibition ever in Tampa.
Branko van Oppen, curator of ancient art at the museum, said he has wanted to have something about Egypt on display since he was appointed in 2022.
The museum currently has Greek, Roman and Etruscan art exhibits.
Mysteries of the Nile: Ancient Egypt is an overview of what life at the time was like, van Oppen said.
“There's a little bit about everyday life and about power, about the pharaohs and queens, about the elites, the priests and the scribes of ancient Egypt," he said.
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"There is also attention to mummification and the Egyptian ideas about the afterlife, how in the hereafter the Egyptians dream to live on in the Field of Rushes.”
The exhibition is made up of 117 items, a third of them loaned from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
Van Oppen said the exhibition also includes artifacts from the museum’s own collection, as well as some items on loan from private collectors.
“The museum now has more than 60 objects in the collection that are related to ancient Egypt, we should celebrate that and we should let the people know that there are other ancient civilizations that are worth our attention.” he said.
One of the items from the Tampa Museum's collection is a linen bag containing a mineral called natron, which was used in the mummyfication process.
Van Oppen said the bag was found randomly in the archives about six years ago.
“It’s crazy that we have that in our collection, but it's an object that was directly related to preparing the body for the afterlife, and in this case, for preparing King Tut's body for the afterlife,” he said. “So we're really excited to have that on view. We had no idea that we had that in our collection. It was sitting on the shelf for 40 years.”
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Van Oppen said the exhibition was designed to be family-friendly in the hope it will bring in people who may not have visited the museum before.
“We've tried to make the texts, the labels, as accessible as possible, not being scholarly or academic, trying to use as little jargon and technical terms as possible so that everyone can enjoy it,” he said.
He said the exhibition will add to the museum’s already diverse collection of both ancient and modern art.
“We are always looking for another civilization, that could be ancient India or that could be Mesoamerica,” he said. “But in this case, it's ancient Egypt. And I think that variety is adding to what we have on view in the museum.”
The exhibition offers viewers a glimpse into how Egyptians thought about the meaning of life and death through objects like statues, amulets and elements of worship.
Van Oppen said this makes for an interesting experience because although things differ depending on culture and time period, the act of contemplating and interpreting life is something all humans do.
“It is good to see that that long ago, people were struggling with the same kinds of thoughts, the same kind of making sense of life,” he said.
