The scrolls of pharaohs, elegant examples of writing on papyruses. Wood and stone tell us of the millennia-spanning Egyptian civilisation. Canopic vases sit beside work instruments and amulets. A mummy dating back to 650 B.C., funerary masks and, naturally, painted sarcophaguses bear witness to the importance of the cult of afterlife for the people of the Nile. And in addition small figures of deities such as the goddess Min-Ptah, Osiris, Isis Horo represented as a falcon, and Bastet in the guise of a cat. A short walk from the centre, the art, artefacts, and items from the everyday life of the ancient Egyptians have found their home in the Visconti rooms of the Sforza Castle. The collection grew out of the archaeological excavations that the archaeologist Achille Vogliano carried out in the region of Fayyum in the 1930s.
Don't miss the statue of Amenemhat III (1842-1794 B.C.), a pharaoh of the 12th dynasty, the last great sovereign of the Middle Kingdom and founder of the temple dedicated to cobra-goddess Isis Thermuti, and the stele containing the Book of the Dead, a collection of religious texts whose purpose was to favour the meeting of the dead with the deities.