Detours: Gods' gifts

Back in the 1920s, William Shelton of Emory University in Atlanta scoured Egypt and the Middle East in a machine gun-mounted, armour-plated Rolls-Royce, swerving past fighting Britons and Arabs as he searched for antiquities.

Shelton amassed more than 250 relics for what was then called the Emory University Museum, which he co-founded in 1919.

Renamed the Michael C. Carlos Museum in 1991 after a wealthy benefactor, the museum raised its profile eight years later by paying US$2 million for Egyptian relics rescued from a bankrupt Niagara Falls museum awash with oddities.

Speculation arose that a mummy from the Niagra Falls collection, which had its arms crossed in the manner of Egyptian royalty, could be the remains of King Ramses I, founder of one of Egypt's most potent dynasties.

Ramses' god was Seth, the storm deity, and at the opening ceremony for a 2003 show featuring the mummy an electrical hailstorm erupted and a tornado passed by. The mummy was eventually confirmed as being Ramses, and was sent back to Egypt soon after. But the museum retains many other marvels, not least a mummified falcon and lizard encased in intricately painted miniature coffins. The curios were offered at the shrine of a god in return for divine favours.

There's also a perfectly preserved papyrus called the Litany of Ra, which tracks the sun god from dawn to dusk in a series of pictures foreshadowing the era of comic strips and cartoons. The cycle depicted shows rebirth, death and the Egyptians' belief in eternal life, which spawned the mummy phenomenon.