Procession of the royal Mummies
The procession of the royal mummies is a global event held on Saturday, April 3, 2021, which includes the departure of 22 mummy belonging to the Egyptian Museum located in Tahrir Square in the center of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to its new location in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, east of Cairo.
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| Royal Mummies Procession |
Short video Royal Mummies Procession.
The entire ceremony was shown on the YouTube channel of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
Full video Royal Mummies Procession.
Itinerary
The procession began by moving from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, then passed in front of the obelisk of King Ramses II in Tahrir Square, then headed to Simon Bolivar Square in Garden City and then to the Nile Corniche until it reached Qasr al-Aini, and from it to the wall of Magra El-Ayoun, and then to the Nilometer in Al-Rawdah. Then to Fustat, to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, where the mummies will be displayed.
The Mummies participating in the procession
The number of mummies participating in the procession amounted to 22 pharaonic royal mummies, eighteen mummies of kings and four mummies of queens, and the vehicles transporting them moved according to the order of the kings as follows:
- King Seqenen Ra Taa
- Queen Ahmose-Nefertari
- King Amenhotep I
- Queen Meritamun
- King Thutmose I
- King Thutmose II
- King Hatshepsut
- King Thutmose III
- King Amenhotep II
- King Thutmose IV
- King Amenhotep III
- Queen T
- King City I
- King Ramses II
- King Merneptah
- King City II
- king septah
- King Ramses III
- King Ramses IV
- King Ramses V
- King Ramses VI
- King Ramses IX
Events
The parade began at 8 pm (6 pm GMT) with musical and light shows in the procession's passing areas. The procession provided motorbikes, as the journey of about seven kilometers began between the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat. The mummies proceeded according to the chronological order of the reigns of kings and queens, as previously. King Seqenen Ra of the seventeenth Egyptian dynasty led the procession of kings, and in the back was King Ramses IX of the twentieth Egyptian dynasty.
The mummies were carried on carts decorated with pharaonic drawings and inscriptions and equipped with an atmosphere containing nitrogen, so that the mummies would be in suitable conditions for transportation. Each cart bears the name of the king in it in Arabic, English and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Under heavy security, the procession left a century-old museum, accompanied by additions in pharaonic costume, horse-drawn carriages (Pharaonic chariots), under the drums of a brass band, and against a background of symphonic music. The pharaonic chariots arrived at the new museum around eight thirty in the evening, and artillery fired twenty-one rounds, and they were received by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The procession lasted about 40 minutes, covering seven kilometers.
The ceremony included musical performances by Egyptian artists. "The whole world will watch this royal procession, it will be an important forty minutes in the life of the city of Cairo," Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass told AFP. Before the start of the show, the celebrations opened with a song by the Egyptian singer Mohamed Mounir, and Egyptian actors, including Ahmed Helmy, Mona Zaki and the Tunisian Hind Sabry, recited texts about Egyptian civilization. Earlier in the evening, President El-Sisi visited the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, accompanied by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, to see some of the collections.
Preparations for the procession took a total of four months.
Target
The event aims to promote tourism, culture and security, and heal the wounds of the Egyptian revolution in 2011. “The new building that provided for the mummies aims to display them in conditions of embalming,” Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, who specializes in mummification, told AFP. Better will display the mummies in more modern boxes in order to better control the temperature and humidity compared to the old museum.” “Seeing the procession of these mummies entering the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, and knowing that they have become more accessible to the world from now on, is the culmination of the tireless efforts aimed at preserving and presenting them to the public,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, former French Minister of Culture, said during an official visit to Egypt. Towards a better.” “There are strong relations between UNESCO and Egypt, and they go back in particular to the rescue of antiquities in Nubia, including the Abu Simbel temple (1963-1968), which was behind the formulation of the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Heritage concluded in 1972.”
The mummies will be presented individually alongside their coffins, simulating the underground tombs of kings, accompanied by biographies, and x-rays of some of them. "The mummies will be presented for the first time in a beautiful way, for educational purposes and not for excitement," says Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian Egyptologist. Queen Elizabeth II, to the Museum:
She closed her eyes and ran away.” The mummies will not be ready for display until April 18. The mummies have not left Tahrir Square since the beginning of the twentieth century.
History of the Mummies
The 22 mummies participating in the procession were discovered in two caches. The first was discovered in 1881 at Deir el-Bahari on the West Bank in Luxor, in tomb 320 at Thebes. The second was in 1889 in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, in the cache of the tomb of King Amenhotep II, tomb 35