Visit to Manchester Museum

Our recent visit to this splendid museum proved popular with SPAG members with fourteen of us braving the typical wet Manchester weather to see the Golden Mummies Exhibition. The organiser, Chris Ainsworth, had put a great deal of effort into ensuring we saw as much as possible during our guided tour which also included artefacts from the Creswell Crags caves which we explored last year.

Our tour guide explained that the mummies are all from the Graeco-Roman period (famous for Antony and Cleopatra). This was a time when Egypt was ruled first by a Greek royal family, ending with Queen Cleopatra VII (no, I didn’t know there had been seven Cleopatras!) then by Roman Emperors. Wealthy members of this multicultural society made elaborate preparations for the afterlife, combining Egyptian, Greek, and Roman ideals of eternal beauty. 

Upstairs in the Roman section the guide showed us a SATOR Square which was found locally. These intriguing acrostic word squares contain a 5-word Latin palindrome. If you want to learn more have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sator_Square 

The group spent some time looking at the Roman finds and the stone tools from the Creswell Crags caves before ending the tour in the Egypt and Sudan Gallery. This outstanding collection of Egyptian and Sudanese objects is one of the largest in the UK and illustrates both everyday life and preparations for the afterlife. 

We were all extremely impressed with the wonderful collections and having realised that there were many more galleries to see we were all keen to return at a future date.