Rick Mather Architects’ £5 million redevelopment of the Egyptian galleries at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum will open this weekend with an exhibition on Ancient Egypt and Nubia.

The galleries contain more than double the number of mummies and coffins previously on display and chronologically display more than 5,000 years of artefacts from the Nile Valley.

Six galleries were created by the £5 million project, part of a major redevelopment of the museum which started with an extension that opened in 2009, doubling the museum’s display space.

A third phase, also designed by Rick Mather Architects, will further extend the museum and create three new galleries, exhibiting Dutch and Flemish paintings, Old Masters’ drawings and contemporary art.

The project has received funding from Lord Sainsbury’s Linbury Trust, the Selz Foundation and other trusts, foundations and individuals.

Christopher Brown, director of the museum, said: “Rick Mather’s design for the galleries now allows us to display material that, for reasons of conservation, has not been seen for up to half a century.”