Zagreb puts a near 2,300-year-old Book of the Dead on show

The Archaeological Museum in Zagreb (Arheološki muzej u Zagrebu) has put another piece of its Egyptian collection on show: a Book of the Dead on papyrus, almost 2,300 years old. It sits in the permanent exhibition next to the Zagreb Mummy and the Zagreb linen book, the museum announced on Wednesday 28 October. For anyone planning an autumn or Advent city break in Zagreb, the museum on Zrinjevac square in the Lower Town now has a new reason for a rainy-day visit, at an admission price of 8 euros.

What the papyrus shows

According to the museum, the papyrus belonged to a priest named Paher-Honsu and his wife Nesi-Honsu. Both are shown before Imentet, goddess of the West, and the god Osiris. The left side carries chapters from the Book of Gates; the right shows cows that stand for the levels of the sky and oars for the barque in which the soul sails along the heavenly Nile. The sheet had broken into fragments. Restorers pieced them back together, which is what made it possible to display.

The papyrus came to the museum in 1862, together with the mummy. Based on the dating, the two certainly did not belong to the same burial, the museum says. Igor Uranić described the papyrus in 2006 in the journal Acta Antiqua: it is written in hieratic script and probably dates from the Late Period or the Ptolemaic era. Nothing in it shows that the mummy is the woman Nesi-Honsu.

Why the Zagreb Mummy is famous

The mummy's linen wrappings carry the longest known text in the Etruscan language, the Liber linteus Zagrebiensis (Uranić, Acta Antiqua). The mummy is Egyptian, while the bandages bear Etruscan script. Experts have spent almost 160 years trying to work out how the two came together, and the papyrus is one of the clues. Visitors can now see the mummy, the linen book and the Book of the Dead side by side.

What it means for visitors

• Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 10:00 to 18:00, Saturday 10:00 to 20:00, Sunday 10:00 to 13:00, last entry 20 minutes before closing. The museum is closed on Mondays and public holidays (museum).
• All Saints: Sunday 1 November is a public holiday and Monday 2 November is the weekly closing day, so the museum reopens on Tuesday 3 November. That also means no free entry in November, which otherwise applies on the first Sunday of each month. The next free Sunday is 6 December, when Advent is already under way.
• Admission: 8 euros, or 4 euros for pupils, students and pensioners. The 14-euro family ticket covers 3 to 5 people, at least one of them a child aged 7 to 15 (price list).
• Guided tours: every Saturday at 15:00 there is a free tour with an admission ticket, though it is in Croatian and not for groups. An English tour of the whole permanent exhibition costs 60 euros, lasts 2 hours and has to be booked 10 days ahead.
• With children: the "Egipat subotom" series runs free workshops on Saturdays at 11:00 for children aged 9 and over, and adults can join in. Registration is by email in the week of each session: hieroglyphs on 31 October, papyrus on 7 November, jewellery on 14 November (programme).
• Getting there: the museum is at Trg Nikole Šubića Zrinskog 19, better known as Zrinjevac, a few minutes on foot from Ban Jelačić Square. Trams 6 and 13 stop at Zrinjevac. During Advent, from 28 November, the park is lit up as one of the Christmas market venues (our Advent guide).

If you want to combine several museums: the Mimara Museum reopens after its renovation on 7 November (our report), and a rainy-day route through the Upper Town is in our museum route. Travel and hotel tips for Advent are in our Zagreb weekend trip guide.