The collection began at the hands of the founder and the first ruler of the Empire of Brazil, Dom Pedro I.
One of the most important pieces in the ancient Egyptian collection is the sarcophagus of the singer Sha-Amun-en-su, which was offered as a gift by Khedive Ismail Pasha to Brazil. It has never been opened.
The museum possesses three other sarcophagi of three priests of Amun: Hori, Pestjef, and Harsiese. It also conserves a rare Egyptian mummy from the Roman period of which there are only eight similar ones worldwide, named “Princess Kherima”, along with other five human mummies and other sarcophagi of animals.
On top of that, a large collection of shabtis – statues of funerary servers – is included in the collection, some of them belonging to pharaoh Seti I excavated from his tomb at the Valley of Kings. There are also fragments of masks, jewels, statues of deities, and funerary cones. Read more.
Goldnwulf 