My Favorite Artifacts in Phoebe A. Hearst Anthropology Museum, UC Berkeley

Phoebe A.  Hearst Museum of Anthropology of University of California, Berkeley has a huge trove of wonderful and sometimes strange artefeacts from all over the world and many of its prized collections are those from the ancient civilizations.

The most amazing pieces are a group of Egyptian mummy portraits. These ancient works astonished with their verisimilitude. Perhaps, there were some customary beautification, but these portraits really strove to capture the likeliness of the deceased, and their living spirits and personalities. Another interesting aspect of these portraits was that the deceased were all portrayed as quite at peace, and devoid of any traces of sadness, often seen in latter-day cemetery monuments.

Egyptian Mummy Portrait

Another amazing piece was also from ancient Egypt — an Egyptian iconography relief found at Tebtunis, a town or city located in the present-day village of Tell Umm el-Baragat, in the Al Fayyum Governorate, Lower Egypt. This stone carving fragment featured some commonly seen, fantastic ancient Egyptian deities in the shape of wondrous beasts and humans, or maybe simply princes. These beautifully rendered relief profiles dazzled with fluid lines, and economic yet rich details, and they immediately evoked the world full of grace, mystery and spirituality beyond our feeble comprehension.

Egyptian iconography at Tebtunis - Hearst Anthropology Museum

My Favorite Museum Collection Series
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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

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