What do a couple of mummies, sharpened rocks, pottery and basket fragments have in common? They are all in the UW’s archaeology collection in the Burke museum. I went to see what ancient treasures Laura Phillips, archaeology collections manager for the Burke museum, could show me.

The first room she led me to houses the collection’s many artifacts. In the center of the room sat a couple of people working on labeling, cleaning and otherwise maintaining the collection. There was a woman working on basketry fragments, which Phillips said were from a site that was about 2,000 years old. She explained that the site was a wet site and the fragments were submerged, saving them from deterioration. The soil in Washington state is acidic and easily erodes organic materials. The pieces of basket, which looked like they were made from reeds and branches, would not have lasted nearly that long if the soil had its way.

She also showed me some shaped rocks which could have been used as tools, and I had to wonder about the people in the field who actually found this stuff. I mean, how do you know which one is a regular rock, and which is a prehistoric tool? Phillips told me that they look for signs of manufacturing techniques. For example, if a rock has flaked — that is, pieces of it have been chipped off to make a sharp edge — in a way that couldn’t have happened by rolling down a hill, then it is probably man-made. Of course, some things are a lot more obvious than that, like the mug she showed me that was made from a walrus tooth. It was complete with a little handle and was at least 100 years old.

Then, she showed me an Egyptian mummy and a coffin lined with hieroglyphs. The coffin, Phillips said, was about 3,000 years old, and belonged to a wealthy man in ancient Egypt. The mummy was of a woman who was about 19 years old when she died. She was in the upper-middle class, and her mummy is about 2,000 years old.

There were also figurines that Phillips said had been in an exhibit they called Sex, Drugs, and Vice. There was one of two women in a lip-lock, as well as another two figurines that Phillips aptly described as being “attached in an interesting way.”

Finally, we came back to the room where we started and saw artifacts found on campus. There were points — perhaps from some ancient arrows — that were 1,500 to 3,000 years old. It was traded material and evidence of the economy that flourished between the Native American tribes of this region in ancient times. The points were found near what is now Drumheller Fountain.

From the shores of the Nile, to the mountains of Peru, to the ground beneath Drumheller Fountain, the UW archaeology collection contains some of the astounding history of our ancestors.

Reach reporter Chaitra Sriram at features@dailyuw.com.