BOISE, Idaho — Mummies of The World: The Exhibition is now being showcased at the Discovery Center of Idaho. The exhibit features six galleries highlighting real mummies from all over the world.
- Mummies of The World is one of the largest collections of real mummies and related artifacts ever assembled.
- The exhibit will be on display until Fall of 2024.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
"All the human mummies in this exhibition are real and were once living people with families and friends. They are human beings and must be treated with dignity and respect in their death."
"This exhibition is really unique because it combines a lot of different types of sciences so you know, archaeology, biology a lot of the medical sciences," says Erin Seymour, the Education Director at the Discovery Center of Idaho.
She tells me that the exhibit has a variety of mummies, some of which may be between 500 and 1000 years old.
"They are all real mummies so remains of humans and animals. You won't see just your traditional mummies like the one behind me. There are some that are more skeletal looking that have been preserved in different ways… Mummies are different than skeletons, to be a Mummy It has to be preserved with soft tissue so skin, hair, muscle, something like that has to be preserved over time in order to make it a mummy," says Seymour.
For visitors like Robert Blum and his family, the exhibit is a unique way to explore the past.
"It's just fun to have something to take the kids out and go enjoy on the weekends and go do. But other than that, it has that educational value to it and it's not something you're gonna see every day," says Blum.
"You'd have to travel around the world and all different places to actually see some of this stuff that you may never see and seeing stuff in real life, in 3-D is such an amazing learning experience for all of us," says Breeze Thies, a Discovery Center visitor.
"I think it's really important because kids, especially younger kids have the opportunity to see it in real life and kind of make may be some learning that there you know hearing about the school and other experiences kind of come to life," says Mikaela Price, a Discovery Center visitor.
The exhibit has six galleries highlighting different mummies from different regions and features various artifacts that help tell the rest of their stories.
"Mummies are way cooler than I thought they would be! There's so much to learn from them and they're definitely not like a scary or spooky thing more of a really unique learning experience," says Seymour.