Cairo gears up for unprecedented parade of royal mummies amid rumors of “curse of the pharaohs” and grounding in the Suez Canal

The mummies of 22 kings and queens of ancient Egypt will star in an unreleased film “Parade of the pharaohs” this Saturday, between the Cairo museum, where they have been resting for more than a century, andl National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), south of the capital, which will open on April 4.

Saturday before night, 22 royal mummies, 18 kings and four queens, will be transported in chronological order, each in vehicles with decorations typical of the era of the pharaohs, identified with the name of the sovereign.

The journey of about seven kilometers will take 40 minutes and it will have awesome security measures.

Pharaoh will inaugurate the procession Seqenenre Taa (16th century BC) of the 17th dynasty and will close it Ramses IX (12th century BC), of the 20th Dynasty. Better known to the general public Ramses II and Hatshepsut will also be part of this big “Golden Parade of the Pharaohs”.

More modern and educational

The event will also include a music show broadcast live on Egyptian TV.

Most of the 22 mummies, discovered near Luxor, in southern Egypt, from 1881, have not left the downtown Cairo museum, located in the famous Tahrir Square, since the early 20th century. century.

Since the 1950s, they have been exhibited, one beside the other, in a small room, without too much explanation for the visitor.

On Saturdays, to be transported, they will be placed in a kind of packaging containing nitrogen, under conditions very similar to those of the urns in which they are in the museum. The vehicles that will transport them also have a mechanism to avoid shocks.

At the NMEC, from April 18, they will be exhibited in more modern urns, “with more sophisticated temperature and humidity control than that of the old museum”, Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and expert in mummification.

Mummies They will be presented individually, next to their sarcophagi, in a setting reminiscent of the underground tombs of kings, and each will have a biography. In some cases, scanners that have been performed will also be displayed.

“For the first time, the mummies will be presented in a beautiful way, for educational purposesEgyptologist Zahi Hawass told AFP.

According to this expert, the macabre environment surrounding the mummies in the Cairo museum has frightened more than one visitor. “I will never forget when I took (Princess) Margarita, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, to the museum, she closed her eyes and ran away,” she recalls.

After years of political instability following the popular uprising of 2011, which severely affected tourism in the country, Egypt is looking for a way to bring foreigners back. The NMEC and the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), near the pyramids, which will be inaugurated in the coming months, are part of this strategy.

“The curse of the pharaohs”

The GEM will house the Pharaonic collections of the Cairo Museum, including the famous treasure of King Tutankhamun.

His tomb, discovered in 1922, has preserved the mummy of the young king and numerous objects in gold, ivory and alabaster.

But why not display the mummies in this museum? “GEM already has King Tutankhamun, the star. If the mummies are not left at NMEC, no one will come to visit him, ”says Hawass.

While waiting for the unprecedented parade on Saturday, social networks are full of messages that speak of a “Curse of the Pharaohs.” Many internet users have linked the recent disasters in Egypt to a “curse” caused by the transfer of ancient kings.

In a week, Egypt experienced the blockade of the Suez Canal by a gigantic ship, a train crash that left 18 people dead and an accident in a building in Cairo in which at least 25 people died.

The “curse of the pharaohs” was also mentioned by the press around 1920, after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, when members of the archaeological team died under mysterious circumstances.

With information from AFP

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