Rediscovering Forgotten Treasures in Swiss Museums
It still seems to be a little bit of a secret that almost every canton of Switzerland has at least one museum owning Egyptian artefacts. Over 30’000 objects are housed in more than forty museums all over the country. Most of the Egyptian collections are rather small ranging from a few pieces to several hundred objects with coffins and mummies forming their highlights.
Many of these burial equipment had never been studied, published or even exhibited. That is why, in 2004, the Swiss Egyptologists Renate Siegmann and Alexandra Küffer initiated a small project called Schweizer Sargprojekt (Swiss Coffin Project) focusing on coffins, mummy coverings and masks. Currently twenty-eight Swiss museums and collections are participating in the project. The following account is a short summary of the project and presents some outstanding burial equipment and the stories behind them.
