Art Gallery: Egyptian and Nubian Galleries, Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean Museum opens the doors to its Egyptian and Nubian galleries tomorrow and in these six refurbished rooms you’ll be able to see one of the greatest collections (among some 40,000 antiquities) outside Cairo. Designed by the architect Rick Mather, the galleries cover 5,000 years of human history, including objects that have been part of the museum’s collection since it opened in 1683.

Highlights include the Shrine of Taharqa (c 680 BC), built at Kawa in Sudan. The intricately carved sandstone shrine, which was once brightly painted, was bought back to Oxford in 1936 in 150 wooden crates. Since it was far too heavy to move, the new galleries had to be built around it. Other highlights are the many mummies, some of which will be displayed for the first time and two of whom have beautifully painted portraits incorporated into the heads of their casks.

One tiny mummy is that of a child aged about two, who died sometime between AD 80 and 120. Recent CT scans at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital revealed not only his sex and age, but that he probably died of pneumonia, had a twisted hip and suffered from a very rare dental condition. The contemporary artist Angela Palmer has recreated the child’s body in glass based on the CT scans. The work will be displayed permanently next to the mummy.

• The Egyptian and Nubian galleries at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford open on 26 November

Click on the images to enlarge

Bastet the cat-goddess. Bronze and gold, Late Period

Chariot wheel. Elm and tamarisk wood, with remains of plaster and rawhide binding, from the tomb of Amenhotep III, Western Valley no 22, Western Thebes, 18th Dynasty, c 1391–1353 BC

Coffin lid of Djeddjehutyiuefankh (head). Painted wood, from Deir el-Bahri, Western Thebes, 25th Dynasty, 770-712 BC

King offering wine. Electrum, solid cast, details cold tooled, uraeus and jars added separately, from Temple A at Kawa, New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, c 1292–1190 BC

Bunch of grapes on a hooked 'stem'. Glass, bronze and wood, from el-Amarna, c 1353-1335 BC

Group statuette. Yellow standstone with traces of red and black paint, H 18.6cm, reassembled from fragments (incomplete), from Abydos, mastaba D109-11, late 12th or early 13th Dynasty, c 1800-1700

Human images. Carved bone figure, incised details filled with black paste, from Matmar grave 2682, Naqada I, Predynastic, c 3900-3600 BC

Model boat. Painted wood and linen sail, Middle Kingdom, c 1975–1755 BC, from Beni Hasan, tomb of Ma

Queen Nefertiti offering a bouquet to Aten. Limestones fragment from a column, with traces of red and blue paint, from Tell el-Amarna, possibly from the Great Palace, 18th Dynasty, c 1345 BC

Ram of Amun. Statue and plinth of granite gneiss, cracked in antiquity, from Temple T at Kawa, c 680 BC

Shrine of Taharqa (detail). Sandstone shrine erected by King Taharqa (690-664 BC) in the court of the Temple of Amun built by him at Kawa in Nubia

Angela Palmer: representation of Boy Mummy, 2011

Mummy original. From Hawara, AD 80-120