In the gardens of the Mohatta Palace Museum on Wednesday evening, Pakistan-born Egyptologist and archaeologist Dr Salima Ikram traced the artistic, cultural and historical contours of ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley. She was speaking at a lecture, the first in the lecture series 2026, titled ‘From the Indus to Nile’.
Dr Salima said ancient Egypt has exerted a spell over people for millennia, pointing to its influence on architecture, especially mausoleums and Masonic buildings. “The ancient Egyptians influenced art through the ages, as you can see how all sorts of things were Egyptianising. The Cubists were very much influenced by ancient Egypt... Picasso, Klimt, Klee — all changed their way of looking because of Egyptian art.”
She also spoke about fashion and popular culture. “Many Hermès scarves and other things have all been inspired by different moments in ancient Egyptian history,” she said, adding that cinema played a major role in spreading Egypt’s image, from ‘The Mummy’ to Egyptian classics like ‘The Night of Counting the Years’.
Even in Karachi, she said, Egypt’s legacy appears in everyday life. “You see Pyramid Productions, Pyramid Logistics — because if you can build a pyramid, you can move anything.” About how she became an Egyptologist, Dr Salima said: “As far as I know, I am the only Pakistani Egyptologist in the world.” She recalled that her fascination began with a childhood book on ancient Egypt.
“I was nine and a half when we went to Egypt... and that cemented my love of ancient Egypt.” She later completed her studies at Cambridge, despite early resistance. “I told my father it doesn’t matter if I’m poor, I can wash dishes.... So another reason of course that I fell in love with Egypt is it’s amazing. This is the last surviving wonder of the ancient world.”
Speaking about the two civilisations, she recalled: “People said to me, ‘Why ancient Egypt? What’s wrong with the Indus Valley?’” She pointed out that it is a bit difficult sometimes, although Harappa is wonderful.
“We have urban planning, fantastic mud brick architecture, incredible water systems, sewage systems that nowadays we would die for. But anyway, they had complex rituals. From Mohenjo-Daro we can see we had social stratification. It is indeed a complex culture,” she explained.
“In Egypt of course we also had some of the same. We have urban planning — not as good. We have water supplies — not quite as good, but we have the Nile right there. We have quite complicated temples, which are very useful.”
She said that one thing to remember about the Indus Valley civilisation is that everything apart from the pots are small. “Everything is miniaturised. Our cultures seem to shrink down. The Egyptians on the contrary, go big and that is part of their appeal.”
Discussing art and symbolism, she explained that Indus artefacts remain difficult to interpret. “At one point, any female figurine was called a mother goddess,” she said, adding that figures like the priest king still raise questions. “Is he a priest, a king or merely a high official?” In Egypt, she said, statues were often clearly political. “The king is making a propagandistic statement.”
A major challenge, she stressed, is the undeciphered Indus script. “That is where the problem lies. In Egypt our texts were deciphered in 1822.” Despite distance, said Dr Salima, contact between the two regions likely existed. “They are far away from one another, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t contact.” Trade, she explained, was key. “You don’t just trade things — you trade ideas, ways of thinking.”
The clearest link, she noted, was lapis lazuli. “For the ancient Egyptians lapis was almost a sacred stone,” she said, explaining its symbolic colours. “The gold is the flesh of the gods. The blue... is the hair of the gods.” She traced its journey from Afghanistan across regions, noting its presence in royal Egyptian artefacts.
On beliefs, she spoke about mummification and the afterlife. “The idea was that you can preserve the body, and thence the soul could reanimate it.” Entry into the afterlife, she added, depended on moral balance. “Your heart was weighed... and if you were in balance, Osiris would welcome you into the hereafter and you could go and enjoy an eternal existence.”
