Golden Mummies presents eight extraordinary mummies and explores beliefs about the afterlife during the era when Egypt was part of the Greek and Roman worlds (circa 300 B.C.E.–200 C.E.).

In a series of lavishly illustrated thematic sections, the exhibition uses the outstanding collections of the Manchester Museum to allow visitors to examine life for the wealthy in multicultural Roman Egypt, where diverse Egyptian, Roman, and Greek communities and cultural influences were blended. The exhibition journey traces expectations for the afterlife and introduces cultural constructions of identity, strikingly demonstrated by the haunting painted panel portraits. The practices of preservation and decoration of the body, and the transformation of the deceased into a god, are spectacularly shown by the mummies on display.