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George Washington was in his first term as president when a group of curious minds in Albany started what would become New York\u2019s oldest museum. <\/p>\n
That was 1791. Some 235 years later, the Albany Institute of History & Art is still going strong, and it\u2019s hiding one of the best plot twists in Upstate NY.<\/p>\n
It involves a steamship, a coffee and spice businessman, and a 3,000-year-old mummy who spent about a century being mistaken for someone else.<\/p>\n
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Source \/ I LOVE NY<\/p>\n
How two Egyptian mummies ended up in Albany<\/p>\n
Back in 1909, museum trustee Samuel W. Brown, who worked for Albany\u2019s Bacon, Stickney Coffee and Spice company, bought two mummies from the Cairo Museum and had them shipped across the Atlantic to Albany. <\/p>\n
Brown even had one partially unwrapped to prove it was the real deal, according to WAMC<\/a>.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve been on display ever since, which means generations of Capital Region kids have pressed their faces against the glass to get a look.<\/p>\n The mummy mix-up that lasted a century<\/p>\n For most of that time, one of the two mummies was presented as a woman. Then, scans at Albany Medical Center told a very different story.<\/p>\n The skeleton had a male jaw, eye sockets and brow ridges, plus a narrower pelvis. <\/p>\n Even better, the right shoulder blade was overdeveloped, the kind of wear that comes from years of repetitive work, the Times Union reported<\/a>. That matched the hieroglyphs on the bottom of the coffin, which identified the occupant as Ankhefenmut, a priest and sculptor from Egypt\u2019s 21st Dynasty.<\/p>\n In other words, \u201cshe\u201d was a he, and a hardworking artist at that. Museum officials announced the discovery in 2013, alongside a whole exhibit built around the mystery.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a fun bonus fact: Ankhefenmut\u2019s coffin is scattered across three countries. Albany has the bottom, while other pieces ended up at the British Museum in London and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.<\/p>\n What else you\u2019ll find inside<\/p>\n The mummies are just the start. <\/p>\n The museum\u2019s Ancient Egypt exhibit<\/a> also includes coffin pieces, canopic jars, a statue of an ibis and a mummified cat.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the art too, of course. <\/p>\n The Albany Institute has a seriously impressive collection of Hudson River School landscapes, including works by Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, the painters who made Upstate NY\u2019s mountains and valleys famous. <\/p>\n On top of that, there are tens of thousands of objects and roughly a million documents covering everything from Dutch colonial history to early American furniture.<\/p>\n How to visit from NYC<\/p>\n The museum is at 125 Washington Avenue in downtown Albany, about three hours from the city by car or train. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s what to know before you go, per the museum\u2019s website:<\/p>\n Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday, noon to 5 pm (closed Monday and Tuesday)<\/p>\n Admission: $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, $8 for kids ages 6 to 12, and free for kids under 6<\/p>\n Free entry: Bank of America cardholders get in free the first full weekend of each month, and there are free evenings on select First Fridays<\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss out! Follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and now on WhatsApp<\/a>, too!<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/AlbCo_071_F2E23FC9-9D9E-20BE-93B77676599785B2-f2e23ee6a2063ab_f2e24020-bf22-396e-ce7323021954d964-10.jpeg\")
Source \/ I LOVE NY<\/p>\n