An exhibition in southern Taiwan made headlines last month for displaying three model zombies. Though those zombies were fake, the Egyptian mummies on show at a science museum in Taichung are very real. Visitors get to learn how mummies were prepared and the history behind the practice.
Video script:
A mummified corpse lies on display at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung. It’s one of several mummies on show. The event has attracted quite a number of children who were accompanied by their parents.
One man says the exhibit is very meaningful. A woman says it feels like the Egyptians had more advanced technology back in their times.
The museum says one particular mummy was bought from a French scholar with its coffin 20 years ago at a price of NT$10 milion.
As for the Taiwanese people, they seem to have their own perspective about life and death. Another exhibit in Chiayi shows just that: the Ten Courts of Hades. The myth goes that a different emperor is put in charge of each court. It is believed that bad people who did bad things while on earth would be sent to hell to be judged and then tortured in all sorts of gruesome ways. They include being guillotined or thrown into a pot of boiling hot oil.
Foreign visitors to the exhibit thought it was special but scary. They say it was absolutely an eye-opener.
With the ghost month in Taiwan arriving at the end of July, the Chiayi exhibit is a not-so-gentle reminder to do good deeds lest the hungry ghosts find you.