Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt

Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt is a guided tour at the Penn Museum on Saturday, December 19, and it's one of the first ways to see the museum's new Egypt galleries. The tour runs from 2 PM to 3 PM, and it's built around how ancient Egyptians lived, worked, worshipped, and prepared for eternity.

To get why this is a big deal, you have to know what's been happening behind the scenes. The museum is in the middle of the largest renovation in its 136-year history: a total transformation of the 14,000-square-foot Ancient Egypt and Nubia galleries into a two-level experience. The previous Egypt gallery first opened in 1926 and closed to the public on November 6, 2023, to make room for the work. The reimagined galleries are opening in two phases. The Main Level, which this tour focuses on, is dedicated to life and afterlife. It's anchored by the limestone tomb chapel of Kaipure, which dates back to 2,300 BCE in Saqqara and hasn't been shown in its entirety in three decades.

The second phase is the Upper Level, reserved for gods and pharaohs. That one will house the 3,000-year-old palace of Pharaoh Merenptah, with its 30-foot columns standing at full height for the first time since they were excavated more than a century ago. The scale of the whole thing comes from a deep history: University of Pennsylvania archaeologists have been excavating in Egypt and Nubia for more than a century, building a collection of about 50,000 objects spanning from 4,000 BCE through the 7th century CE—one of the largest in the United States.

Tickets for the tour are $35 for general admission and $31 for members, and that price includes full-day admission to the museum. The tour runs from 2 PM to 3 PM on December 19, so you've got the rest of the day to wander the galleries on your own.