Lottery helps British Museum dig deep to save artefacts

The British Museum was told on Friday that it could have £10m of lottery cash to help complete ambitious plans for a £135m world conservation and exhibitions centre on the Bloomsbury site's north-west corner. The museum is still £17m short of the overall cost.

There will also be state-of-the-art science and conservation laboratories to replace the laboratories housed in the basements of 19th-century houses. The lift down to one Egyptology lab, for example, is only big enough for mummified animals and children, not the full-size ones.

The Guardian

A rare view of Egyptian Book of the Dead

The British Museum's major autumn exhibition this year examines ancient Egyptian beliefs about life after death.

Journey through the afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead will show off the museum's collection of papyri, a rare and very fragile collection of spells which were designed to guide the dead safely into eternal life.

The exhibition will include the longest Book of the Dead in the world, the Greenfield Papyrus, which is 37 metres long and has never been shown publicly in its entirety before.

Read more: BBC

Ancient Egypt comes to London. The Daily Mirror

Colossal limestone bust of Amenhotep III

A favourite piece from the British Museum, London. From the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, Thebes, Egypt, 18th Dynasty, about 1350 BC.
Read more: British Museum

Treasures of the British Museum

Masterpieces of the British Museum

The Museum: Behind the Scenes at the British Museum

The Third British Egyptological Congress

The Third British Egyptological Congress will take place at the British Museum in London between 11th and 12th September. The key note speaker is Mark Lehner.

Back from the dead, an ancient guide to the afterlife

Egyptian scrolls hidden in the British Museum's vaults for two centuries are finally seeing the light of day
Source: The Independent

Ancient Egypt guide to afterlife centre of UK show

Papyri from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a series of spells designed to help guide the dead through the afterlife, will be at the centre of a new show at the British Museum this November. The star item is likely to be the Greenfield Papyrus, which the London museum called the world's longest Book of the Dead at 37 metres (yards). It has never been shown publicly in its entirety before.

Source; Reuters

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