Night at the museum

A sleepover with the pharaohs in the British Museum

If you like camping or you’re into archaeology—and Egyptian archaeology in particular—then it doesn’t get much more exciting than camping in the British Museum, in the Egyptian sculpture galleries, surrounded by statues and sarcophagi. Having done several such sleepovers with our daughter, we recently got to do our first with our younger son. This is what it’s like.

You arrive at the museum on a Saturday evening at 6pm, just as it’s closing. Tourists and other visitors are filing out, and excited families, wheeling suitcases and carrying bedding rolls, are filing in. To be able to apply for tickets for one of the sleepovers, one of your children needs to be a “Young Friend” of the museum.

Once inside, everyone lines up in the Great Court, and we inch forward to the administration desk, where we’ll be told which of four groups we’ve been assigned to, and gallery we’ll be sleeping in.

The administration desk for the sleepover, which steers us towards either the Assyrian or Egyptian sleeping areas, is set up in front of the Rosetta Stone. That’s the Rosetta Stone, which was discovered in 1799 during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, and which provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, because it has the same text written in three different scripts. There it is on the left.

We are told to make camp in one of the Egyptian sculpture galleries, much to our relief. The Egyptian galleries are quite spacious, are filled with epic sculptures and have a few warm spots on the floor. We set up our bedding rolls and sleeping bags as best we can.

The Assyrian galleries have spectacular carvings, but we know from previous sleepovers that they can be quite cold. They are also much smaller and more resonant, which can be a problem if someone nearby is snoring loudly.

Once we’ve made camp, the evening’s activities can begin. There are four different activites that the four groups each do in a different order. For our group, the first activity was making canopic jars out of long sausages of clay. During the mummification process, internal organs were removed and stored in these jars, which were placed in the tomb with the mummy.

The jars traditionally had lids that represented various gods (the four sons of Horus). Some of our jars look more authentically Egyptian than others.

The next activity for our group is role-playing and Egyptian-style dancing, which wears the children out quite effectively. There’s then a brief break during which the adults are served coffee.

Then it’s on to the next activity, which is drawing amulets and writing hieroglyphics on pieces of papyrus, which are then arranged to decorate this papier-maché sarcophagus. Drawing on papyrus with felt-tip pens is tricky.

The final activity is a storytelling session in front of an Ancient Greek temple. We listen to creepy tales of mummies and mummification, both ancient and modern. By this stage it’s nearly midnight, and many of the children (and some of the adults) are falling asleep. We retreat to our sleeping areas and get ready for bed. Walking through the darkened museum is both spooky and strangely exciting.

The nightwatchman makes his rounds with his torch, but nearly everyone is asleep. The children are too exhausted to worry about statues coming to life, marauding mummies or scary sarcophagi.

Morning! The lights come on at 7am and after a quick breakfast of fruit, croissants and coffee we pack up our sleeping bags and bedding rolls.

We’re moving out, but some of the sleepers in the Egyptian gallery are permanent residents, like this intricately carved sarcophagus.

Having packed up our gear, we head for the Egyptian galleries. The museum hasn’t opened to the public yet, so we campers have them all to ourselves. Sleepovers are usually linked to a temporary exhibit as well (in this case, of eight mummies which have been “unwrapped” using medical CT scanners). We went to that exhibit too, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures.

Finally, the bleary-eyed campers head home. But we’ll be back for another sleepover before long. We thoroughly recommend it. Similar sleepovers are also possible at the Science Museum in London, in the American Museum of Natural History in New York and two of the Smithsonian museums in Washington, DC. If you get a chance to spend a night in the museum, take it!

All photos © Tom Standage. Please ask if you want to reproduce/republish them.