A journey of influence

PROVO — More than 40,000 students, teachers, and scholars of art and history have come to the Museum of Art on the Brigham Young University campus to see the ancient artifacts of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Those who haven't seen the 204 pieces on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston have just six weeks left to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity, said Chris Wilson, a spokesman for the museum. The exhibit closes June 4.

"This is a really special exhibit," said museum educator Cheryll May. May trains the docents who help visitors understand and appreciate the items on display, from a tiny gold amulet that is designed to protect a person in the afterlife to a Faience ceramic, blue lotus blossom jar that represents eternal renewal.

The cultures of Egypt, Greece and Rome have determined much of how mankind orders, values and understands the world, May said. Artistic and cultural traditions of the West can be traced in a continuous line to the Egyptian civilization that first developed along the Nile River about six thousand years ago.

"Egypt is the gift of the Nile," May said. "Every year the Nile brought wonderful, rich, black African soil. Kings could use the Nile and the power of the Nile. It was a 600-mile ribbon of fertility."

Included in the display is a mummy case that entombed the remains of Pennu, the young priest from the temple of Karnack who died in 800 B.C., and an outer casket that was probably part of a set of colorful nesting boxes for the rich deceased.

Nearby are the four jars that hold his vital organs.

There are Shabti figures of various gods who were assigned to attend to the needs of the dead, doorjambs with carved figures and stone storage jars that tell wonderful stories of the Egyptian people.

There are scarab beetle necklaces, an ostrich-feather fan, coins and a delicate earring with a bejeweled dove.

The vase room alone offers a rich history of everyday life and mythology in black-figure, red-figure and white-ground pottery.

"I don't think you will find a finer display of vases. It's just thrilling," May said. "My favorite is the one with the hunter armed with his spear, just about to get his prey. Another is the one with the scaled monster in battle with Hercules."

Most of the items were unearthed by George Andrew Reisner, a kind of Indiana Jones figure who excavated the Tomb of Nekhebu for Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.