The collection of Ancient Egyptian and Nubian antiquities at the Michael C. Carlos Museum covers the full spectrum of Nile Valley civilization, from the earliest Prehistoric times, to the period of Roman domination. At the core of the collection are the artifacts acquired by Emory professor William Shelton, who traveled to Egypt in 1920, including the oldest Egyptian mummy in the Americas. The collection experienced tremendous growth, beginning in 1999 with the purchase of Egyptian antiquities from a small, private museum in Niagara Falls, Canada. The objects from the Niagara Falls Museum had been purchased in Egypt during the early 1860s, and include ten mummies, nine coffins, and a variety of other artifacts. The Niagara collection consists primarily of funerary material from the 21st Dynasty (ca. 1070–946 BC) to the Roman Period (ca. 31 BC–395 AD), a time of great achievement in the funerary arts.

Included in the 1999 purchase was a previously unidentified male mummy. Through research and collaboration with Emory University medical experts, Carlos Museum scholars determined it to be most probably that of the lost pharaoh, Ramesses I. The museum returned the mummy to Egypt in 2003 as a gift of goodwill and international cultural cooperation. Learn more about Ramesses I.