human mummy;
mummy-wrapping;
mummy-case;
cartonnage
- Museum number
- EA29588
- Description
-
Mummified remains of a young child in a polychrome painted cartonnage mummy-case
Sex: unknown
Age: unknown
Stature: unknown
Head and neck – Head tilted forward slightly with the chin on the chest.
Chest and abdomen – This region is still fully articulated with the arms crossed across the chest. Possible dense, cylindrical objects in the chest, perhaps wrapped organs or packing materials.
Arms - Crossed on the breast (right over left). The palms of the hands, fingers extended, lie just below the shoulders.
Legs - The bones and joints appear fully articulated the legs are extended with the feet upright.
Pathological conditions – none observed
Bandages – style and state of bandages unknown
Cartonnage - The mummy-case is anthropoid in the form of Osiris. The face is gilded, and the head was originally surmounted by a crown, now missing. The face is topped by a row of uraei and a sun disk. A beard, now partly missing, was attached on the chin. An elaborate collar ends with free-standing falcon-headed terminals. The arms (not crossed, unlike those of the individual inside) hold crook and flail and wears bracelets. The figure is wearing a tunic from which the arms seem to come out. Below, a gilded pectoral shows in relief a scarab flanked by two standing figures. The body is painted to represent a bead-net and decorated with painted amulets, in the form of the four Sons of Horus, with a vertical register of corrupt hieroglyphs down the centre of body. A vertical white band runs along the back of the cartonnage case.
Condition
Preservation skull: 100.0%
Dentition: 100%
Preservation post cranial: 100%
Condition: Excellent – complete with little to no breakage
Soft tissues or other: unknown
Percentage mummified skull: 100%
Percentage mummified post cranial: 100%
- Production date
- 1stC BC-1stC
- Dimensions
-
Length: 78 centimetres (mummy)
-
Length: 81 centimetres
-
Width: 23.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
-
Intrusion (human): No
Intrusion (animal): No
Scientific analysis: No
-
Bibliography:
The British Museum, 'Guide to the First, Second and Third Egyptian Rooms' (London, 1924), p. 142;
S. Walker and M. Bierbrier, 'Fayum. Misteriosi volti dall'Egitto' (London, 1997), p. 64 [35];
C. Riggs, 'The beautiful burial in Roman Egypt: art, identity, and funerary religion' (Oxford, 2005), 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 83, 84 Fig. 32, 256; 247 n. 6.
- Location
- On display (G62/dc26)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1997 22 Oct-1998 30 Apr, Italy, Rome, Fondaione Memmo, Ancient Faces
- Condition
- good
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Department
- Egypt and Sudan
- BM/Big number
- EA29588
- Registration number
- 1897,0112.1349
