Sacred and Profane

Sacred and Profane: Treasures of Ancient Egypt from the Myers Collection, Eton College and University of Birmingham

In Sacred and Profane: Treasures of Ancient Egypt sumptuous photographs of rarely seen Egyptian antiquities from the little-known Myers Collection, widely regarded as one of the most important collections of small Egyptian artifacts in the world. Sacred and Profane: Treasures of Ancient Egypt highlights over 80 objects from the Myers Collection—mummy masks, statuettes, jewelry and cosmetics, pottery, papyri and toys—document two and a half millennia of life and death in ancient Egypt. The artifacts were bequeathed to Eton College by alumnus Major William Joseph Myers in 1899. Includes five essays on Egyptology.  Hardcover, 128 pages; 132 color photographs. 8.5" x 10.75".

Museum Provenance

Sacred and Profane evokes the exhibit Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt which opens November 17, 2011. A sneak preview of this exhibit is now on display! Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt focuses on Egyptian burial ritual, its place with ancient Egyptian cosmology, and the insights that mummies, burial ritual, and cosmology provide about life in ancient Egypt. We invite our visitors to explore the ways in which mummies, tombs, and Egyptian mythology open new windows into the lives of ancient Egyptians as they navigated through the world of the living to achieve eternal life after death.

Every Smithsonian purchase will arrive with a museum provenance card explaining how it is adapted from or inspired by an object or objects in our collection.