Over 200 ancient Egyptian artefacts – including a hook used to pull the brain through the nostrils of a person being mummified, and the bandages used to wrap them – have arrived for display in the nation's capital.
Discovering Ancient Egypt is the National Museum of Australia's newest exhibition, featuring artefacts on loan from the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities.
"This exhibition spans 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian culture," senior curator Craig Middleton said.
"We do tell stories of pharaohs and rulers, which I think everybody knows a little bit about, but … we also tell stories about everyday life."
Mummified bodies, tools on display
Perhaps the most confronting part of the collection is the display of mummified bodies — of both humans and animals.
The museum hopes the inclusion of these mummified bodies, which will be displayed in a separate room, will "prompt us all to think about profound questions relating to life and death, as well as changing funerary rites and practices, in the past, present and future".
"There’s a misconception that ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death," Mr Middleton said.
"They loved their lives and wanted to prepare for this eternal afterlife, which was firmly part of the belief system."
Part of that preparation was the "arduous" mummification process, and the exhibition features tools used for mummification dating as far as 1,539 BCE.
"For a deceased person's spiritual body to arrive safely in the afterlife, the physical body needed to be preserved," Mr Middleton explained.
"Mummification was an arduous process that took 70 days, and had to be undertaken by specialist priests.
"To have the very tools that were used by the priests is so special."
These tools include a stone knife; linen bandages; and pieces of resin, which were used to slow the decay of the body and mask the smell before the wrapping process began.
There is also a metal hook, which a priest would use to first remove the brain via the nostrils, before making a small incision in the left side of the person's body to remove the remaining organs.
Some of the organs would be put in jars for preservation, and then placed alongside the coffin in the person's tomb.
From death to ordinary life
The sanctity of death and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian culture are strong themes in the exhibition, with intricately decorated coffins, pyramidions (or capstone), and elaborate jewels in the collection.
But just as captivating are the seemingly ordinary objects that offer a rare glimpse into what life on the Nile would have been like for everyday ancient Egyptians.
Among them is an oil lamp, which is believed to date back to between the 2nd and 4th century CE and was excavated from a site known as Shokan in the early 1960s.
"What's special about it is it comes from a domestic, lived context – not from a burial context, not from a tomb – so it reveals lived experience of people living along the Nile," curator Lily Withycombe said.
"It's mould-made, so it would have been one of many lamps like this that was mass-produced.
"You can see that it was actually used, you can imagine a family crowded around it. There's a burnt bit at the end where the wick would have gone in. There's a hole where the oil would have been poured in."
The exhibition also features a popular board game from the time called senet, which is believed to have been owned by a man named Baki between 1,539 and 1,191 BCE.
The pieces moving across the board game are thought to have represented the soul's journey through the underworld to the afterlife.
"Not everyone had time for leisure activities, but we know that playing board games is something that cuts across all social classes and the most famous, most preferred game in ancient Egypt, was senet," Ms Withycombe said.
"To put it in context, Tutankhamun had no less than five board games of senet in his tomb. So everyone from pharaohs to ordinary people like Baki played this game."
Preserving ancient treasures
These priceless, ancient pieces of history have survived thousands of years and largely retained their pristine condition as a result of the uniquely dry climate of Egypt.
"Egypt is a really special case study for archaeology because its dry conditions are excellent for preservation," Ms Withycombe said.
"And that's one of the reasons so many really fragile things, like textiles and papyrus, have actually survived."
But touching these priceless pieces is reserved only for professionals like Eliza Jacobi – a conservator from the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, which is home to one of the world's most impressive collections of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
Ms Jacobi's job is to ensure each artefact arrives safely in Canberra, ready for display.
"The biggest risk is the moment they're travelling with all the vibrations going on, which is why we really have to take care and think about how they're travelling," Ms Jacobi said.
"You feel anxious when they arrive at the new destination because you don't know what the object will look like.
"Until now, everything has arrived safely, so we're doing a good job, I guess."
The exhibition opens to the public tomorrow, and will run until September 2024.