(CNN) – Ancient mummies of Egypt’s royal pharaohs emerged from their resting places on Saturday and paraded through the streets of Cairo toward a new home.
What looks like a film’s plot was part of a lavish celebration of Egyptian history and a project to transfer some of its greatest treasures to a new high-tech facility.
The mummies of Ramses the Great and 21 others were part of the “Golden Parade of the Pharaoh”, a long-awaited event organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt.
The parade took place between the Egyptian Museum, its former location near Tahrir Square, and its new home, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Egypt’s first Islamic capital, al-Fustat.
“I invite all Egyptians and the whole world to follow this incomparable event – evoking the spirit of the great ancestors who preserved the homeland and created a civilization of which all humanity is proud – to continue on the path we started: the path of construction and humanity. “
The carriages with 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies depart from the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the parade.
Khaled Desouki / AFP / Getty Images
Sarcophagi are stone coffins often adorned with sculptures and inscriptions.
Among the mummies are those of the kings Ramses II, Seti I, Seqenenre and Tuthmosis III, in addition to four queens: Ahmose-Nefertari, Tiye, Meritamun and Hatshepsut.
The parade was greeted by greetings from 21 shots and accompanied by a military band. The mummies were transported in special vehicles decorated with their names inscribed on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and also in Arabic.
The mummies that participated in the parade were discovered in two cachets. The first was discovered in 1881 at Deir El-Bahari in the West Bank of Luxor at the TT320 tomb.
All 22 royal mummies are from the New Kingdom, a time when tombs were built underground with hidden entrances to keep grave robbers out.
Preparing the mummies
The purpose of the parade was to remove the 18 kings and four queens from Egypt, along with their coffins and belongings, from their former home in the Egyptian Museum.
Egyptian-dressed artists march at the beginning of the parade of 22 Egyptian royal mummies departing the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
Mahmoud Khaled / AFP / Getty Images
Dr. Mostafa Ismail, head of conservation at the NMEC Conservation and Mummy Conservation Laboratory, led a team of 48 people to prepare the royal mummies.
The conservation process, he told CNN, involves placing each mummy in an oxygen-free nitrogen capsule “that can keep it preserved without being damaged by the effects of moisture, especially we’re talking about bacteria, fungi and insects.”
The capsule is surrounded by a soft material that distributes pressure and reduces vibrations during transport.
When the mummies arrive at NMEC, the display units will have exactly the same conditions as the nitrogen capsules. “So there will be no shock to the mummy when we take it out of the box and put it in those units,” adds Ismail.
Accompanying each mummy will be all the belongings discovered next to them, including their coffins.
The monitors also show CT scans that reveal what’s behind the wrap and, at times, any bone fractures or illnesses that afflicted royalty.
Taylor Barnes and Hamdi Alkhshali of CNN contributed to this report.