Inside a mummy

Every mummy in the British Museum was once a living, breathing person.

You are about to explore the mummified body of an Egyptian man called Nesperennub. He lived nearly three thousand years ago in the great city of Thebes.

He worked as a priest in the temple of Karnak, and was a fan-bearer to the King.

His mummy case has been in the Museum for over 100 years but has never been opened, as unwrapping mummies can badly damage them.

But we can use computers and modern scans to see inside the case and work out what Nesperennub might have looked like.

About Nesperennub's
mummy

From: Egypt

Date: around 800 BC

Found: Luxor, Egypt, 1890s

Not on display in the Museum

The outer coffin

Nesperennub's wooden coffin has his face painted on the outside. He wears a wig, and his headband and collar are made of lotus petals. The lotus flower meant life after death to the Egyptians. The writing, called hieroglyphs, down the centre is a prayer asking for 'life, prosperity and health' for Nesperennub.
The mummy case

Inside Nesperennub's coffin is a case that holds his mummy. It is brightly painted. At the top you can see a scarab beetle with a falcon's head. This is the sun god Ra. His wings are stretching out over Nesperennub's chest. The hieroglyphs below the knee tell us that Nesperennub and his father both worked at Karnak.
Jewellery and amulets

Amulets and jewellery were placed on Nesperennub’s body to protect him and give him power in the afterlife. You can see these resting on his chest in the scan picture. There is a large pectoral (chest ornament) in the shape of two outstretched wings, a stone ‘heart’ in the shape of a scarab beetle, and an amulet called a wedjat eye on his throat.
The skeleton

Nesperennub's body lies untouched inside his wrappings. His skeleton can tell us a lot about him. The good shape of his spine and the plates in his skull show that he was probably about 40 years old when he died.
The skull

There is a hole at the root of one of Nesperennub’s teeth. This was probably very painful. There is also a strange small hole above his left eye. He could have had an illness like cancer, or a brain tumour, which attacked the bones of his skull, and this might explain why he died.
The strange bowl

In this picture there seems to be a bowl stuck to the back of Nesperennub's head! Here's what probably happened. Workers coated the body in a runny sap called resin - the bowl was there to catch any drips. But as the resin cooled the bowl got stuck and the workers couldn’t get it off, so they wrapped up the body quickly, hoping nobody would notice. And until now nobody has.
What did Nesperennub look like?

This is a model of Nesperennub's face, made from a copy of his skull. Pegs were put into the skull copy to show how deep the flesh should be. Then clay was used to make the skin, muscles and eyes. Nesperennub is shown bald, as priests in ancient Egypt had to shave all their hair off.