ATLANTA, GA.- Life and the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Art from the Senusret Collection, on view at the Michael C. Carlos Museum from February 4 to August 6, 2023, is an exhibition about what objects can tell us about daily life, sacred life, and the hereafter in ancient Egypt.

The collection, named after King Senusret II’s pyramid village, Hetep-Senusret in the Faiyum, was gifted to the Carlos in 2018 by the Georges Ricard Foundation with the understanding that it would be conserved and used to promote knowledge not only about the rich funerary rituals, customs, and beliefs of the ancient world but also about the life of ancient objects over time. Several items in the exhibition highlight student and faculty research, technical and scholarly collaboration, methods of analysis and conservation, and provenance tracing.

Organized by Melinda Hartwig, curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern art, the exhibition focuses on the history of the Senusret Collection; objects of daily life; the beauty and protection of amulets and jewelry; religious votive statuettes that acted as donors’ magical participants in cultic practices; stela and reliefs; and burial items that provided for the eternal needs of the deceased. Burial objects include the coffin assemblage of the priestess of Osiris, Taosiris, which protected and transformed the wrapped body.

This exhibition has been made possible through generous support from the Forward Arts Foundation, the Morgens West Foundation, Linda and Ira Rampil, James B. Miller, Jr., Sandra Still, and Emily Katt.