On July 7, the students of the Cairo Japanese School visited the Museum of Civilization to study and observe the actual artifacts of ancient Egypt. This field trip was conducted as a sequel to the previous school visit by the GEM-JC project office. The royal mummies found in the two caches in the Valley of the Kings and Deir al-Bahri have just been transferred from the Egyptian Museum and are gathering worldwide attention.
On the day of the event, Ms. Akiko Nishisaka, Deputy Project Manager of GEM-JC Project, and Ms. Misako Moriyama, expert of GEM-JC Project, walked around the museum with two teachers from the Japanese school and an Egyptian interpreter.
First, the students visited the mummy room. Usually, visitors are required to keep quiet in the exhibition rooms, but since there were no other tourists, the students actively raised questions such as “Are the mummies hard?” and “Why are the colors of the mummies different?”
In the next Ancient Egyptian Civilization room, the students were also surprised and awed by the tools used in making bread by the ancient Egyptians and the fact that the unit “cubit” (the length from the elbow to the fingertips) was actually used in constructions. Ms. Nishisaka also introduced some of the conservation methods on display, such as the use of Japanese washi in the conservation of the papyrus.
After the field trip, the teachers accompanying the students thanked Ms. Nishisaka and Ms. Moriyama for their easy-to-understand but in-depth introduction about the history of Egypt. The GEM-JC project office will continue to share information regarding the care of ancient Egyptian Civilization heritages in the museums and the promotion of the project.