Ta-Kheru Goes on Tour

The University of Aberdeen is a major partner in a touring exhibition about Ancient Egypt, lending almost 150 items from its internationally important collection, including Ta-Kheru’s mummy and coffin. Working with the Roemer- und Pelizaeus- Museum of Hildesheim, MuseumPartner of Innsbruck and the Lockschuppen exhibition centre in Rosenheim, the exhibition was on show during 2017 in Rosenheim near Munich and attracted over 170,000 visitors. 

Before the inner coffin and mummy of Ta-Kheru could be displayed, they had to be stabilised and restored. Her linen wrappings were damaged and the bead net had become tangled, with the vegetable fibres that held the beads together disintegrating. Conservation staff at the University of Aberdeen painstakingly secured the linen wrappings and pinned the beads back in place. The mummy and coffin were then transported to the studio of Jens Klocke in Hildesheim, a specialist in conserving Ancient Egyptian mummies. He dry-cleaned the linen wrappings and consolidated the beads and inner coffin, leaving Ta-Kheru ready to go on her travels.

The exhibition, including the lid of Ta-Kheru’s inner coffin, is currently on display in the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, Canada. Ta-Kheru herself has stayed in Europe in 2018 and so has been able to be the subject of detailed study and the creation of a holographic video. In February 2019, she will re-join the rest of the exhibition for a tour of the USA, beginning in Cincinnati.