Last chance to visit ‘Secret Egypt’ at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery

Shropshire’s first Egyptology exhibition in more than 170 years closes this Sunday (26 April 2015), after attracting more than 11,000 visitors and a great deal of praise since it opened in January.

‘Secret Egypt: unravelling truth from myth’ (sponsored by Lanyon Bowdler) is on display at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery – and visitors and local residents are being urged to take this last chance to see it.

The exhibition includes statuary, coffins, stelae, ceramics, jewellery and animals, and the human remains of Namenkhetamun, who is believed to have died in 600BC.

From Monday 27 April the displays – including the mummy – will be carefully packed up and transported to their next venue at the New Walk Museum in Leicester.

Louise Cross, visitor economy manager at Shropshire Council said:

“All the team at the Museum & Art Gallery have been delighted at the number of visitors to ‘Secret Egypt’ and by the positive reaction and comments it has attracted. It’s been our biggest success so far in our new home in the former Music Hall.

“We are now working on our new programme of exhibitions and will shortly be announcing some more exciting attractions that will be coming to Shrewsbury in the future.”

During the planning of ‘Secret Egypt’ museum staff unearthed a report in the Shrewsbury Chronicle describing the unwrapping in 1842 of an Egyptian mummy in the old Shirehall building in The Square. The mummy had been donated by the late Bishop of Lichfield to the Shropshire & North Wales Natural History and Antiquarian Society. Samuel Birch, one of the curators of The British Museum presided over the unwrapping and gave a lecture to an appreciative crowd including nearly all of the members of the Society.

In the 1960s the remaining Egyptology collection of Shrewsbury Museum was transferred to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery where specialist curators could care for and research the material. A small number of items from Whitchurch Museum remain in Shropshire Museums’ care, some of which are also on display in the collecting cases of the Shropshire Gallery.

‘Secret Egypt’ has been the first major exhibition of Egyptology in Shrewsbury since 1842.

It is a touring exhibition from the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, loaned by Birmingham Museums Trust on behalf of Birmingham City Council.

‘Secret Egypt’ is open daily from 10am until 5pm, and closes at 5pm on Sunday 26 April Admission is £4.00 for adults, and concessions are available, along with a new £10 family ticket.

For more information visit www.shrewsburymuseum.org.uk or call 01743 258885.