Ancient Egyptian Mummies and Artifacts Head to Seoul for Major Exhibition
A Seoul exhibition will bring together about 150 ancient Egyptian objects from the Brooklyn Museum, including human and animal mummies, sculpture, jewelry and multimedia displays.
A major exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts will open in Seoul this December, giving visitors a rare opportunity to see mummies, sculpture, jewelry and objects connected to daily life and beliefs about the afterlife.
The exhibition, titled “Unraveling the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt,” will present about 150 pieces from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection of ancient Egyptian art. It is being jointly hosted by Yonhap News Agency, the Brooklyn Museum, Donga Ilbo and Channel A, with ENA Partners organizing the event.
Scheduled to run at the Seoul Arts Center in southern Seoul from Dec. 11, 2026, through April 11, 2027, the show will be the first exhibition in four years to display Egyptian mummies in South Korea. The objects have a reported total insured value of nearly $120 million.
The opening portion of the exhibition will focus on how ancient Egyptians lived. Among the featured works are a tomb painting depicting a woman kneeling on a green mat and a sculptural group showing Nykara, a granary scribe, with his wife and son. Other pieces illustrate the dress and refined fashion of Egypt’s elite roughly 3,000 years ago.
Funerary objects form another major part of the exhibition, reflecting the ancient Egyptian view of death as a passage to eternal life rather than a final ending. Visitors will be able to examine the mummy and cartonnage of Hor, an Egyptian priest whose remains date to approximately 760 to 558 B.C. The decorated outer covering is filled with religious symbols and images of gods intended to protect the deceased and support rebirth.
The exhibition will also include mummified cats associated with Bastet, the Egyptian goddess linked to love, fertility and the home. Computed tomography scanning has been used to examine the internal structure of the animal mummies without disturbing them.
Organizers are adding audiovisual elements to make the material more accessible. Displays will introduce hieroglyphics and recreate sounds associated with the ancient Egyptian language, while an animated film will explain the process used to make a mummy.
The organizers said the exhibition is designed to let visitors encounter in person the mummies, pharaohs and hieroglyphics often seen only in books and classrooms. Discounted early-bird tickets are being offered ahead of the opening, while the standard adult admission price is 22,000 won.