Now Open

Temporary Exhibition: Mysteries Revisited! From Ancient Codes to Comic Culture

Macquarie University History Museum

26 September 2022 to 7 July 2023

It's been two hundred years since the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone, when the ancient Egyptians finally spoke to us. But mysteries continue to emerge and continue to be solved. Macquarie University History Museum's new exhibition illustrates why we are still fascinated with ancient cultures and how our constant hunger for news from the ancient world creates demand for antiquities, fakes, replicas and even comic books.

Highlights of the exhibition include never-before-seen archival material that helped codebreakers decipher the Linear B script, a forerunner of ancient Greek, on an exclusive loan from the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP) at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to artefacts from the museum's collections, visitors will enjoy private loans, including comic books introducing fictitious heroes set in the ancient world, modern Egyptianising artefacts, and obvious (and not-so-obvious) fakes. The so-called Gosford Glyphs present visitors with a monumental hoax written in petroglyphs that make us want to believe that ancient Egyptians landed in New South Wales.

A volunteer-run student blog also accompanies this exhibition and can be founded here: https://mysteriesrevisited.blogspot.com/. The blog will be updated regularly as the exhibition continues - follow us on Twitter for updates @macquariemuseum.

How blurred are the lines between original artefacts, fakes and replicas? Find out for yourself and see what robust scholarship contributes to solving mysteries.