The Vatican Egyptian Museum and the Etruscan galleries, what I'd look for

Most people walk into the Vatican Museums with the Sistine Chapel on their mind and pass the Egyptian Museum without a sideways glance. I get it, and in my overall ranking it sits well below Raphael. Yet it’s one of my favourite places to start the morning, because it comes early, sits off the path most visitors follow and is full of stories you don’t expect to find in the Pope’s house. Here’s what’s in its nine rooms, what I’d do with the Etruscan Museum upstairs and how long I’d give them. The rest of the route is in my Vatican Museums guide.

An Egyptian museum that really tells Rome’s story

Gregory XVI founded it in 1839, in Pius IV’s former retreat apartment inside the Belvedere palace. The first layout was the work of a Barnabite Egyptologist, Luigi Ungarelli, and some rooms still keep his Nile-inspired decoration, papyrus columns and starry ceilings included. I love that, because you’re looking at Egypt and at how 19th-century Rome pictured it, both at once.

What few guides mention is where the collection came from. A good share reached Rome under the emperors, shipped in to decorate villas and sanctuaries, and some was carved here in the Egyptian manner. That’s why the statues in the Hemicycle once stood in the Gardens of Sallust and those in room III at Hadrian’s Villa. According to the Museums themselves, Rome held Egyptian treasures long before the great European collections were formed.

Mummies and the Vatican Lady

Room II is what most people come looking for. Seven cases surround a central one with painted wooden coffins, and there are two mummies. The one I’d spend time with is a woman, probably named Amenirdis, from the 22nd Dynasty, lying in what was most likely her own coffin. Nearby are 22 shabti figures from the tomb of Seti I, father of Ramesses II, found by Belzoni in 1817.

The piece that grabs me most in this room is another one. It’s known as the Vatican Lady, a 3rd-century linen shroud painted with a full-length, life-size woman whose hair follows the fashion of the Severan empresses. The Museums say only six shrouds of this type are known. Before you leave, look up at the cornice, where Gregory XVI’s name is written in hieroglyphs inside a cartouche, just like a pharaoh’s.

Which piece wouldn’t I skip?

The Naophorus of Udjahorresne, in room I. It’s a 58-centimetre basalt statue of a physician, treasurer and admiral who served the Persian kings after Cambyses conquered Egypt in 525 BC. On his robe he recorded that the Persians respected Egyptian tradition, the opposite of what Greek writers claim. The Museums rate it the most important historical document in the collection. It arrived headless in 1738, was given a head that wasn’t its own and later had it removed, and that tale sums up old-school collecting better than anything I could write.

The same room holds the stele of Hatshepsut beside her nephew, the future Thutmose III, who most likely had her name chiselled off monuments after her death.

The Hemicycle and the terrace of lion goddesses

Room V is a great semicircle built by Pirro Ligorio in 1562. Here stand the granite figures of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, each around 2.7 metres tall, and Queen Tuya, carved for another queen and reused by Ramesses II in honour of his mother. A door halfway along leads onto the Nicchione terrace, with eight statues of Sekhmet made for Amenhotep III. The Museums reckon the epithets carved across the whole group once ran to 365, one for every day of the year.

From there you look down on the Cortile della Pigna and its 2nd-century bronze Pine Cone, in the courtyard since 1608. The two lions at its feet are the originals of Nectanebo I. They once stood outside the Pantheon and then on the Acqua Felice fountain, which now has copies. To place all this on the route, use the Vatican Museums map. And if you want more Egypt outside, the obelisk in St Peter’s Square is a few minutes away.

The Etruscan Museum, upstairs and full of gold

The Gregorian Etruscan Museum opened on 2 February 1837, two years before its Egyptian neighbour, and fills 22 rooms on the second floor. I’d head straight for room II and the finds from the Regolini-Galassi Tomb at Cerveteri, from 675-650 BC. The tomb was found intact in 1836, and the woman buried there, the Museums say, was literally covered in gold. The pectoral is 42 centimetres across, and alongside it are three chariots reassembled in the 2013 restoration.

If you’ve still got energy, the Mars of Todi is a 141-centimetre bronze warrior dug up from between stone slabs in 1835, possibly after being struck by lightning. And from the Etruscan rooms you can see Bramante’s Staircase, which the standard ticket doesn’t let you set foot on.

How long I’d give them

There’s no official figure. I’d give the Egyptian Museum 25 minutes if it interests you and 10 if you only want the mummies and the terrace. The Etruscan one gets another 20, focused on Cerveteri. Both are in the standard ticket with no supplement. If you’re pushed for time, I explain where to trim when working out how much time to allow for the Vatican Museums.