Djehutymose, son of Nespakhered and Temple of Horus priest, died somewhere between 684 and 525 B.C., but his spirit still holds court on Facebook these days.
The Mummy Djehutymose Facebook page is a project of the Kelsey Museum of Archeology at the University of Michigan, which displays Djehutymose’s coffin while his online persona seeks his missing mummy.
Djehutymose’s coffin is just one of the museum’s Egyptian treasures that seemed to fascinate visitors young and old when we visited the Kelsey on recent weekday afternoon.
There are many interesting vintage buildings along Ann Arbor’s South State Street in the University of Michigan’s main campus area, but I’ve always particularly loved the quirky look of the Kelsey Museum. The museum’s building is a late-nineteenth-century house constructed of random-cut fieldstone and adorned with a three-story turret capped with a conical roof.
The Romanesque-style building, designed as home for one of the earliest student Christian associations in the country bears the name of lumber baron John S. Newberry. Newberry’s widow Helen funded $18,000 of the building’s $40,000 construction costs in 1888-1891, and the building still bears the Newberry name on its façade.
Meanwhile, Francis W. Kelsey, a long-time professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, had been amassing an impressive collection of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquities since the 1890s. Professor Kelsey believed that participating in pioneering archeological digs and viewing the collection’s treasures were among the best ways for students to learn about ancient culture, but his passion for collecting meant the University needed more space to house it.
By 1921, the University rented Newberry Hall for classroom space and, by the end of the 1920s, began moving the archeological collection into the building.
The University bought Newberry Hall in 1937.
Kelsey’s collection became the foundation of the archeological museum that U of M eventually named for him in 1953.
The collection and offerings like educational programs for children and adults, research, and support of fieldwork continued to grow over the years.
In 2009, Edwin and Mary Meader donated $8 million to the University to fund a 20,000-square-foot addition to the museum to the back of the original Newberry Hall, providing a climate-controlled environment for display area, research and storage.
The University named the new wing for Mary Meader’s grandfather, the noted western Michigan pharmacist William E. Upjohn.
The new addition means the museum now publically displays 1,300 to 2,000 artifacts, many more than the 200 to 300 items on display in just the original building. That is still just a fraction of the nearly 100,000 artifacts in the museum’s collections.
The museum plans to display several hundred additional items in open storage cabinets on the first floor, and one family consisting of mom and several young explorers there when we visited found that several of the drawers were already stocked with small artifacts for viewing.
The collection focuses on Greek, Egyptian, Near Eastern and Roman artifacts with individual display cases and areas highlighting distinct cultures, along with displays that show the interconnections between ancient people and cultures.
I found the large variety of artifacts illustrating the daily lives of people among the most interesting things on display.
Items like jewelry, pottery, toys, lamps, coins, tools, jugs and more gave me a real feeling for how people lived during ancient times.
The museum has many funerary objects like mummies and items left as offerings in tombs (like a mummified cat!) that also gave me a look at the way those same people viewed death as well.
The second floor of the Upjohn wing focuses on Roman life and displays a nearly life-size watercolor replica of wall frescos from the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii.
Museum hours are 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The museum closes on Mondays and for University of Michigan holidays.
Admission is free, although donations are welcome.
Can’t get to the Kelsey Archeological Museum in person? The museum has a strong online presence.
Check out an online gallery of cuneiform tablets with texts predating 2000 B.C., diaries of ongoing archeological digs, and the museum’s Tumbler account, which features news and articles about curators’ favorite artifacts online.
You can, of course, visit Djehutymose’s Facebook and Twitter feed, as well as the Kelsey Museum’s active Twitter feed and Facebook page.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
Comments