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Munich State Museum of Egyptian Art

Florian Buechting Museums & Exhibitions No Comments

As I for example stated in my review on Louvre Abu Dhabi, I am quite much interested in ancient cultures and arts (and rather less in modern stuff…). Thus, visiting the State Museum of Egyptian Art (“Staatliches Museum ägyptischer Kunst” or simply “Ägyptisches Museum” in German) during my stay in Munich was definitely time worth spending to me. Here is my review of the nice collection.

Egyptian Museum – Location and Admission

As you can see in the map above, the State Museum of Egyptian Art is really in the center of Munich art museums. There are a lot of other interesting places around, like the Historic and the Modern “Pinakothek” or the Munich Documentation Center on National Socialism. There are also some minor exhibitions, which partially belong to the Munich University. The place is really easy to reach and a short walk from Central Station – and it has even been a shorter one from our ibis hotel.

The admission is 7 Euro for adults and 5 Euro reduced and includes a multimedia guide. I visited the museum on a Sunday, which leads to an incredible price of one Euro, which makes this place an absolute must-visit at that day. The guide is not included that day, but can be added for another Euro.

The architecture of the museum is a bit strange, as it is partially below ground. Thus, you take a couple of stairs downwards before you enter the museum (there is a lift in case you need barrier-free access). However, some galleries do have sunlight.

  

  

Egyptian Museum – Art & Form / Art & Time

When you enter the museum, you walk down the stairs as you can see on the picture on the right just above – a very impressing start of the exhibition. The key exhibit in this room is a head of a Sphinx representing Sesostris III. However, there are a lot of other interesting exihibits as well.

  

    

  

Right after you passed by a view of the daylight yeard in the middle of that area, you see some exhibits mainly showing how Egyptian art is reflecting the spirit of these days. At the end of the room, you already look at three impressive statues, which really seem to keep an eye on the whole place. The famous obelisk is more or less the turning point of the gallery, which now moves from these large and impressive galleries to smaller rooms, which each deal with designated topics.

  

  

    

    

    

   

 

Egyptian Museum – Pharaohs and Religion

The next three sectoons deal with the Pharaohs and how Egyptians thought about the afterworld and how it infuenced their life. This has been one of the most interesting sections to me. Two things I especially liked was a large (really several metres long) original papyrus roll and some sort of screen you could move under a slide under that exhibit. At each position, you were able to translate what has been written on the roll or receive additional information on it. In addition, at the end of the third room, there was a mummy which in fact has been a Roman person. It was interesting to see how the cultures mixed and how the Roman hat a painted picture of his face on top instead of the masks which are typical for Egyptian mummies.

   

  

  

  

    

 

Egyptian Museum – Post-Pharao Time and more

The exhibition now more and more turns towards modern times (while “modern” means Roman times, first centuries A.D.). That has been the first exhibition in which I realised how much the cultures mixed during these days, also due to the Christianisation of Egypt.

    

    

 

Egyptian Museum – Grasping Egyptian Art

After a part which dealt with different Egyptian crafts, I absolutely loved the Grasping Egyptian Art exhibition, which showed how statues have been made (you could also somehow use your multimedia guide here). While the rest of the museum is typically given in German and English (some text roll translations are German only, which is a bit of a pity), you are not only motivated to touch the exhibits here, they are also documented in braille script. Cool idea, which is more or less the last room of the museum: apart from a room for temporary exhibitions, there is are some stone plates at the very end of the tour.

 

  

  

  

My View on the Egyptian Museum

I absolutely loved the Egyptian Museum exhibition, which also gave some new insights to me like the infuence of the Romans to Egyptian culture in exhibits. Of course, visiting the museum would absolutely be worth the full admission of seven Euros – but if you happen to be around at the one-Euro-Sunday, there is no chance – you just have to do this place, even if you are not that much of a history-addict.

 

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