The museum's collection of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern antiquities is one of the largest on the East Coast, with 7,500 objects dating from Prehistory to the period of Roman domination. The collection's strengths include Egyptian coffins from all major periods, objects of daily life, royal and divine sculpture, ancient cuneiform tablets, and Near Eastern cylinder seals. Arranged in two galleries, the permanent collection tells the story of humankind through its material culture.
The core of the collection was acquired by Emory professor William Shelton, who traveled to Egypt and Mesopotamia in 1920 with James Henry Breasted of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Shelton brought back a superb selection of artifacts, including the oldest Egyptian mummy in the Americas. In the 1950s, Kathleen Kenyon donated artifacts from her excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem, followed by contributions from former Emory professors Immanuel Ben Dor, Boone Bowen, J. Maxwell Miller, and others, as a result of their excavations in the Middle East. The collection experienced tremendous growth beginning in 1999 with the purchase of Egyptian antiquities from a small, private museum in Niagara Falls, Canada that were acquired in Egypt during the early 1860s. Renamed the Charlotte Lichirie Collection once in Atlanta, research revealed that one mummy from the 1999 purchase was most likely Ramesses I. It was returned to Egypt in 2003 as a gift of good will and international cooperation. In 2019, a generous gift of the Senusret Collection from the Georges Ricard Foundation added significantly to the museum's holdings from the ancient world. The gift included gilded Egyptian funerary masks, finely crafted bronze statuettes of deities, and an exquisitely preserved coffin assemblage from Akhmim belonging to priestess Taosiris. Learn more about the history of the collection and view a selection of its objects.
Daily entrance fee for Free with membership
Open Wednesdays - Fridays and Sundays 11AM-4PM
Closed on Saturdays, Mondays and Tuesdays
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