Let's talk mummies

[Wistman]

Relative to this thread, may I suggest Dr. Christina Riggs' 2014 book entitled "Unwrapping Ancient Egypt", which you can download here:

http://www.academia.edu/12439550/Unwrapping_Ancient_Egypt._London_Bloomsbury_2014

For a taste you can view the chapter covering the Apis mummification through her analysis of the papyrus in Vienna known colloquially as the "Apis Embalming Ritual" papyrus, but (due to textual losses) really covers only the wrapping phase...nevertheless a fascinating read:

https://books.google.com/books?id=8VU7BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=Serapeum+Saqqara+library&source=bl&ots=5OH54ZEJbX&sig=REW2ght2aJehg6ZC4J91YUztDsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjusbjYo9PZAhUnUt8KHbLlDv04HhDoAQhFMAc#v=onepage&q=Serapeum Saqqara library&f=false

*edited to add:  you can view other sections of the book by scrolling up or down past the selected text in the above Google books link. 

Edited March 4, 2018 by The Wistman

[Wistman]

Just for fun, from the image archive of the Leicester Galleries, here is the 1891 painting by Paul Dominique Philippoteau entitled "Examen d'un momie":

Dimensions

(108.07 inches wide)

(72.05 inches high)

Provenance

H M King Fuad I of Egypt; gifted to:
Private collection, Switzerland (The King’s dentist)
Boston Museum of Art (on loan) 1988-1997

Exhibition History

Boston Museum of Art, The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt, 1988 (ex catalogue)

Description / Expertise

The Plaque on the frame is inscribed with the names of the sitters (from left to right):

Marquis de Reverseaux, Ministre de France au Caire; Mr E Grébaut, Dir Génl du service des Antiquités; Docteur Fouquet, Médecin au Caire; E. Brugsch Pacha, Conservateur du Musée; Mr G Daressy, Conservateur adjoint du Musée; Mr H Bazil, Secrétaire complable du Musée; Mr J Barois, Sec Génl du Ministére du Travaux Publies; Mr U Bouriant, Dir de la Misien Archéologique française au Caire.

Edited March 4, 2018 by The Wistman

[+Not A Rockstar]

4 hours ago, jaylemurph said:

Anchorites!

--Jaylemurph

was that them? ascetics or something? That is ....just creepy to me. Beats terrorism, certainly, but it just creeps me out. Thank you :).

[jaylemurph]

1 hour ago, Not A Rockstar said:

was that them? ascetics or something? That is ....just creepy to me. Beats terrorism, certainly, but it just creeps me out. Thank you :).

Yep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorite

Julian of Norwich is probably the best known of the anchorites (or rather, in her case, anchoresses), but there were a fair number of them in the high Middle Ages.

(You see that, Lysippos: that's contributing something. You should try sometime.)

--Jaylemurph

[kmt_sesh]

7 hours ago, The Wistman said:

Just for fun, from the image archive of the Leicester Galleries, here is the 1891 painting by Paul Dominique Philippoteau entitled "Examen d'un momie":

...

An excellent painting, Wistman. I haven't seen that one in ages. I know things were down-and-dirty in those days, not to mention sloppy, but I have a feeling I would've been standing at that table with the others.

I've always enjoyed this old invitation:

Were you lucky, you'd receive an invitation like this from the owner of a prominent manner. You could visit his home and watch him unroll a mummy. You might go home with a fragment of wrapping, or if you were truly favored, with an amulet recovered from the mummy's bandages.

There was a certain sense of style in those days, as morbid as the event itself was.

[kmt_sesh]

At the Field Museum here in Chicago, we're opening a special mummy exhibit on March 16. The name of the exhibit is—get this—Mummies. Several years ago the curators pulled several Egyptian mummies from our permanent ancient Egypt exhibit, and took quite a few more from our storage vaults, and put this exhibit together. It's been traveling around the United Stats and has packed in the crowds at various other museums. We're finally getting the exhibit here at our own museum. (Sure, everyone else got to see it first.)

The Field Museum has one of the largest collections of mummies in the Western Hemisphere, but in our permanent exhibit we usually display only 21. The storage mummies are rarely displayed, so this is a treat. I've seen almost all of them myself, but very few in the public have seen them. We also have a lot of Peruvian mummies, and they are displayed to the public even less. I'm not sure how many of the Peruvians will be in the new exhibit, but it'll be fun to see some of them again.

The exhibit is primarily about the science of studying mummies but will of course include many cultural aspects. The science includes CT scanning and DNA analysis. I've studied our mummies' CT scans very carefully but I honestly have no idea what the DNA analysis entails. I'll be curious to see what that's about.

Here is a link from our website, although it's pretty sparse with the information:

https://www.fieldmuseum.org/at-the-field/exhibitions/mummies

I think everyone in this thread should come and see Mummies. It's going to be a great show!

[Wistman]

11 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

An excellent painting, Wistman. I haven't seen that one in ages. I know things were down-and-dirty in those days, not to mention sloppy, but I have a feeling I would've been standing at that table with the others.

I've always enjoyed this old invitation:

Were you lucky, you'd receive an invitation like this from the owner of a prominent manner. You could visit his home and watch him unroll a mummy. You might go home with a fragment of wrapping, or if you were truly favored, with an amulet recovered from the mummy's bandages.

There was a certain sense of style in those days, as morbid as the event itself was.

It was interesting to discover that the painting includes Emil Brugsch and Daressy, two names of a certain familiarity.  To be honest I find the depiction of corseted, prim ladies sitting there properly while an ancient woman is denuded before them to be oddly fascinating.  And the thought of Edwardian weekend hunting parties at a British aristocrat's ancestral estate, with all its formal luncheons and cocktails before dinner, with everybody dressed in finery and costly accessories, entertained one evening by a mummy unwrapping....well, that's both grim and funny at once.  Such contradictions in sensibilities.

[docyabut2]

 Remembering King Tut`s exhibit  was at Toledo, 1960`s when my Dad took my Son and he climbed up on Tut a almost knock him down. I just hope he wasn't cursed like all the others

Edited March 9, 2018 by docyabut2

[docyabut2]

On ‎3‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 10:12 AM, The Wistman said:

Toledo Museum is one of my very favorites...from its architecture to the quality of its collections (and its special exhibits...as in this one!)  Maybe I'm biased though, my mom worked there early in her career as a paintings conservator.

In this exhibit, which seems pretty marvelous to me, I especially like the mummy of the young priest (945 - 712 BCE) whose arms are placed in what had formerly been a position exclusive to the Pharaoh...a good example of this transition in AE mummification practice.  Also, the quality of preservation seems to be high.  Thanks for posting.

 

This mummy could be a Pharaoh., Most  Pharaohs bodies are not totally  wrapped, could this one be a  Pharaoh ?

Edited March 9, 2018 by docyabut2

[kmt_sesh]

13 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

This mummy could be a Pharaoh., Most  Pharaohs bodies are not totally  wrapped, could this one be a  Pharaoh ?

He's identified as a priest, not a pharaoh. A number of pharaohs have been found from this man's time, although they're not well preserved on average.

The crossed arms don't mean much. Although formerly a royal posture for male mummies (and occasional female royals), the crossed arms became increasingly common for male mummies after the New Kingdom. This priest seems to have lived not longer after the New Kingdom. And by the Ptolemaic Period many female mummies had their arms crossed, too.

[kmt_sesh]

We had our training today at the Field Museum for the new Mummies exhibit. Some of the lectures were quite good but the real treat was the exhibit walk-through. I didn't count how many mummies are on display, but suffice it to say, there are mummies everywhere! It's my kind of exhibit.

The original exhibit back in 2012 was heavy on Egypt and rather light on Peru. The new exhibit also emphasizes Egypt but the Peruvian section is markedly expanded, and features a number of mummies and quite a lot of material culture. I was glad to see that. The exhibit overall is a lot larger than the original 2012 version.

I didn't check on the photography policy while I was in there. No photography was allowed in the 2012 exhibit, but I'll be sure to check on that. It might be allowed without flash. I can't wait to get in there with the general public, as well as to give some lectures on...mummies!

[Harte]

On ‎3‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 5:49 PM, kmt_sesh said:

He's identified as a priest, not a pharaoh. A number of pharaohs have been found from this man's time, although they're not well preserved on average.

The crossed arms don't mean much. Although formerly a royal posture for male mummies (and occasional female royals), the crossed arms became increasingly common for male mummies after the New Kingdom. This priest seems to have lived not longer after the New Kingdom. And by the Ptolemaic Period many female mummies had their arms crossed, too.

Damn feminists!

Harte

[kmt_sesh]

Our new mummies exhibit—yes, called Mummies—opened yesterday and I spent nearly all of today in there. We had a lot of visitors and I talked with many of them. The exhibit seems like it's going to be a hit.

We have a lot of interesting mummies in there, from both Egypt and Peru. These are mostly mummies not put on display, so it's a treat. I want to share photos but am still learning which may be photographed and which may not, so hopefully I can post some photos in here soon.

One mummy I've never seen in person but is in the exhibit is a Later Period Egyptian man named Pen-ptah. At some point n the distant past he was unwrapped from the chest up, so you can see his face (this is one mummy we're not allowed to photograph). His face is largely skeletal now. Where his eyes were are linen plugs, which was common to do but you don't often see in museum mummies who've been unwrapped. Most such mummies are in a better state of preservation, with their eyelids glues shut. But Pen-ptah no longer has eyelids, so the linen plugs are obvious. Kids often ask me what they did with the eyeballs, so here I can show them.

Pen-ptah is well known to those of us who do museum research. His head fell off decades ago and had been stored in a box, but the museum conservator and his staff wanted o put Pen-ptah back together for this exhibit. In the process of handling his detached skull, they discovered Pen-ptah still had brains in there. They took them out.

There's a large Peruvian section with mummies and material culture primarily from the Chancay culture. There's even a small case for the Chinchorro people, who were the first in the world to mummify their dead. I don't know a lot about the Peruvian cultures so I look forward to learning more.

I wish you all could see the exhibit. If you happen to be in Chicago over the next year, do give it a thought!

[Wistman]

The exhibit sounds terrific.  I'm interested in the above: how did the AE's preserve the doomed brains (considering this was not usual)?  How were they removed by your colleagues?

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by The Wistman

[Wistman]

sorry...double post.

Edited March 18, 2018 by The Wistman

[Minimalists]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:30 PM, Aquila King said:

Would duct tape preserve mummies even better?

Nope...I know your joking but the key to Egyptian Mummification was in the salt....Along the Nile River there is a salt called Natron thats not found anywhere else in the world...The body was covered with this salt for about 70 days....The key to the Egyptian Mummies lasting so long... Without moisture you cannot have decomposition....I do do not recall which dynasties used it but Bitumen was a common substance used as well...They would pour it over the body much like molasses I guess....Bitumen was a tar like substance.

They have even had to resort to covering Tuts sarcophagus with a temperature controlled glass case...The moisture from visitors breath was causing the mummy to decay.

[kmt_sesh]

4 hours ago, The Wistman said:

The exhibit sounds terrific.  I'm interested in the above: how did the AE's preserve the doomed brains (considering this was not usual)?  How were they removed by your colleagues?

 

I suspect leaving the brains inside the skull was more common than suspected. In most such cases the brain wouldn't preserve at all, given its gelatinous state. But in the occasional case it has preserved naturally, simply given the dry environment and low oxygen content of the burail. A good example is the preserved body of a 3,000-year-old boy named Nakht. He's not part of our collection but was the first Egyptian mummy ever CT scanned. This was in Canada. He was provided a nice coffin, but his body turned out not to have been mummified at all. The family probably couldn't afford that level of burial. The only damage to his body was his skull, which had come apart, but his brain was still intact. All that happened to it was the two hemispheres had come apart. It was actually his brain that was scanned (not the rest of the body).

Pen-ptah was fully mummified, right down to the linen plugs placed in his eye sockets. The conservator and his staff discovered the brain tissue when they were trying to place the detached skull back onto his body. The brain tissue was audibly rattling around in the skull. It had largely fallen apart into little globs. They got it out simply through the foramen magnum, that large orifice at the back of the skull, though which the spine passes. I've seen pictures of it and keep them on my iPad to show visitors. It looks a lot like ground beef. But that's not all. They also found the carcasses of ancient blow flies that had gotten in there to eat away at the brains, and the carcasses of ancient dermestid bettles that had gotten in there to eat the blow flies.

Pen-ptah had his own ecosystem inside his skull!

P.S. I love the dancing mummies. 

[Kenemet]

On 3/9/2018 at 5:49 PM, kmt_sesh said:

He's identified as a priest, not a pharaoh. A number of pharaohs have been found from this man's time, although they're not well preserved on average.

The crossed arms don't mean much. Although formerly a royal posture for male mummies (and occasional female royals), the crossed arms became increasingly common for male mummies after the New Kingdom. This priest seems to have lived not longer after the New Kingdom. And by the Ptolemaic Period many female mummies had their arms crossed, too.

However, priests were often the leftover sons of pharaohs.  I don't know this one's title, so...

[kmt_sesh]

4 hours ago, Alien Origins said:

Nope...I know your joking but the key to Egyptian Mummification was in the salt....Along the Nile River there is a salt called Natron thats not found anywhere else in the world...The body was covered with this salt for about 70 days....The key to the Egyptian Mummies lasting so long... Without moisture you cannot have decomposition....I do do not recall which dynasties used it but Bitumen was a common substance used as well...They would pour it over the body much like molasses I guess....Bitumen was a tar like substance.

They have even had to resort to covering Tuts sarcophagus with a temperature controlled glass case...The moisture from visitors breath was causing the mummy to decay.

The body was actually buried under the salt for 35 to 40 days. The rest of the 70 days was supposed to be for wrapping (so, around a month of that). But that describes the ideal and is probably representative of a royal or noble. I strongly suspect that in most mummifications, the wrapping process took a lot less than a month. We have one of the largest collections of Egyptian mummies, some of which are thinly wrapped and some of which are thickly wrapped. I would suspect in most mummifications it took no more than a couple of weeks to complete the wrapping, and in many cases even quite less than that.

[kmt_sesh]

1 minute ago, Kenemet said:

However, priests were often the leftover sons of pharaohs.  I don't know this one's title, so...

Yeah, everyone wants a mummy they're seeing to be a pharaoh or a royal in general. In almost all cases, that's not going to be the case.

[+Not A Rockstar]

The recent rise in other topics about Peruvian mummies had me trying to research actual valid examples and the few I could find through the hype out there seem to all be natural mummification, often from freezing.

Is there any evidence of efforts to preserve the dead in South America, as we see in places like Egypt and Africa?

[docyabut2]

On ‎3‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 6:49 PM, kmt_sesh said:

He's identified as a priest, not a pharaoh. A number of pharaohs have been found from this man's time, although they're not well preserved on average.

The crossed arms don't mean much. Although formerly a royal posture for male mummies (and occasional female royals), the crossed arms became increasingly common for male mummies after the New Kingdom. This priest seems to have lived not longer after the New Kingdom. And by the Ptolemaic Period many female mummies had their arms crossed, too.

How`s come the three pharaohs  bodies  and mummies  of the three great pyramids are not found? Are their mummies still  in the pyramids somewhere?

[Minimalists]

8 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

The body was actually buried under the salt for 35 to 40 days. The rest of the 70 days was supposed to be for wrapping (so, around a month of that). But that describes the ideal and is probably representative of a royal or noble. I strongly suspect that in most mummifications, the wrapping process took a lot less than a month. We have one of the largest collections of Egyptian mummies, some of which are thinly wrapped and some of which are thickly wrapped. I would suspect in most mummifications it took no more than a couple of weeks to complete the wrapping, and in many cases even quite less than that.

Only Pharaohs were supposed to be mummified...The Egyptians believed the body had to be mummified, because if it decayed the persons 7 Spirits would be lost and they would not pass to the afterlife. Ever heard of Bob Brier?

Edited March 19, 2018 by Alien Origins

[Minimalists]

15 minutes ago, docyabut2 said:

How`s come the three pharaohs  bodies  and mummies  of the three great pyramids are not found? Are their mummies still  in the pyramids somewhere?

Grave robbers I would suspect....At some point in the Egyptian Dynasties one of the Pharaohs I do not recall which one had all of the bodies moved to the Valley of the Kings....This was done to better protect and guard them from robbers....Though it did little good to be honest....The one and only reason Tuts Tomb was never robbed is that the entrance to it had collapsed....KV62 was Tuts tomb number....

[docyabut2]

3 minutes ago, Alien Origins said:

Grave robbers I would suspect....At some point in the Egyptian Dynasties one of the Pharaohs I do not recall which one had all of the bodies moved to the Valley of the Kings....This was done to better protect and guard them from robbers....Though it did little good to be honest....The one and only reason Tuts Tomb was never robbed is that the entrance to it had collapsed....KV62 was Tuts tomb number....

But Tut never had a honored pyramid tomb.  If Grave robbers took these great pharaohs.  Would`nt they sell them and keep their bodies somewhere?