(CNN) – Ancient mummies of Egypt’s royal pharaohs emerged from their resting places on Saturday and were paraded through the streets of Cairo to a new home.
What sounds like the plot of a movie was part of a lavish celebration of Egypt’s history and a project to relocate some of its greatest treasures to a new high-tech facility.
The mummies of Ramses the Great and 21 others were part of ‘The Pharaoh’s Golden Parade’, a highly anticipated event organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The parade route took place between the Egyptian Museum, their old location near Tahrir Square, to their new home, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Egypt’s first Islamic capital, al-Fustat.
‘I invite all Egyptians and the whole world to follow this unparalleled event – to follow the spirit of the great ancestors who preserved the fatherland and created a civilization of which all mankind is proud – to stay on our path what we started: the path of construction and humanity. “
The chariots with 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies depart during the parade from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Khaled Desouki / AFP / Getty Images
Sarcophagi are stone coffins that are often decorated with sculptures and inscriptions.
Among the mummies are the kings Ramses II, Seti I, Seqenenre and Tuthmosis III, in addition to four queens: Ahmose-Nefertari, Tiye, Meritamun and Hatshepsut.
The parade was greeted by salutes with 21 rifles and added by a military band. The mummies were transported on specially decorated vehicles with their names in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs as well as in Arabic.
The mummies who took part in the parade were discovered in two cookies. The first was excavated in 1881 at Deir El-Bahari in Luxor’s West Bank in grave TT320.
All 22 royal mummies come from the New Kingdom, an era where tombs were built underground with hidden entrances to ward off tomb robbers.
Prepare the mummies
The purpose of the parade was to move the 18 kings and four queens of Egypt, along with their coffins and possessions, from their old home in The Egyptian Museum.
Performers dressed in ancient Egyptian costumes march at the start of the parade of 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies departing from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Mahmoud Khaled / AFP / Getty Images
Dr Mostafa Ismail, head of conservation at the Mummies Conservation Lab and Stooroom at the NMEC, led a team of 48 people to prepare the royal mummies.
The preservation process, he told CNN, involves placing each mummy in an oxygen-free, nitrogen capsule “that can preserve it without being damaged due to the effects of moisture, especially as we talk about bacteria, fungi and insects.”
The capsule is surrounded by soft material that dissipates pressure and reduces vibrations during transport.
When the mummies arrive at the NMEC, the display units will have exactly the same conditions as the nitrogen capsules. “So there will be no shock to the mummy if we take it out of the box and put it in these units,” adds Ismail.
At each mummy, possessions will be discovered next to them, including their coffins.
On the screens are also shown CT scans showing what is under the cover, and sometimes any breaks in bones or diseases that plague the royals.
CNN’s Taylor Barnes and Hamdi Alkhshali contributed to this report.