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Yeah, let’s disturb them, what’s the worst that could happen?

To make matters worse, they're not just disturbing the mummies but also taking away their afterlife "toys" (the ushabti figurines). :roll:
 
Another recent bejeweled find...

Mummy of ancient Egyptian teenager, buried in fine jewelry, discovered in Luxor

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the ancient mummy of a teenage girl decked out in beautiful jewelry, including beaded necklaces and copper earrings, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The teenager was only 15 or 16 years old when she died during the 17th dynasty (1580 B.C. to 1550 B.C.). A team of Spanish and Egyptian archaeologists uncovered her mummified remains, as well as a pair of leather shoes, while excavating ahead of a construction project in an open courtyard by the tomb of General Djehuty, who served under king Thutmose III (stepson and nephew to the female pharaoh Hatshepsut) during the 18th dynasty, José Galán, director of the archaeological mission, said in a statement posted on Facebook.
https://www.livescience.com/ancient-egyptian-teenage-mummy.html
 
A small mummy case understandably believed to hold a mummified hawk turned out to contain a severely malformed / stillborn human fetus. This level of post mortem treatment for a stillborn child is quite rare.
Scientists Thought This Egyptian Mummy Was a Bird, But The Truth Was Something Sadder

A tiny, 2,100-year-old mummy from ancient Egypt had long been thought to contain the remains of a treasured bird - which would make sense, considering the hawk-themed decorations and small size.

But researchers conducting a CT scan back in 2018 found something else entirely - the remains of a severely malformed human foetus, stillborn at no later than 28 weeks.

The mummy had been in storage at the Maidstone Museum in Kent, England, listed in the inventory as EA 493 Mummified Hawk, Ptolemaic Period.

The funerary casement was the perfect size for a bird, bearing the head of a hawk painted in gilt and hieroglyphics referring to Horus, the falcon-headed sky god of the ancient Egyptians.

In addition, the mummification of animals - from crocodiles to cats to kestrels to scarab beetles - was a very common practice in ancient Egypt. So the mummy did not stand out as anything particularly special or unusual.

It nearly didn't even get CT scanned. The museum was having a human mummy scanned in 2016, and figured it may as well put in a few animal mummies from its collection to be scanned too. ...

The team discovered the bones belonged to a human male foetus, between 22 and 28 weeks gestation, with severe spinal abnormalities and a rare birth defect that prevents the brain and skull from developing properly.

"On the basis of the highest resolution scan of a foetal mummy ever made, we've been able to determine this individual was severely anencephalic. It would have been a stillbirth, it would not have lived through birth." Nelson said back in 2018.

"The whole top part of his skull isn't formed. The arches of the vertebrae of his spine haven't closed. His earbones are at the back of his head."

The scans reveal normally formed finger and toe bones, but so serious is the skull deformation, that the brain would have been practically nonexistent. He also had a cleft palate and a cleft lip.

He's also a rarity - one of only eight known mummified foetuses, and only the second every discovered with anencephaly. The first was described in 1826 - nearly 200 years ago. No others have been found since, until EA 493.

The way the remains were preserved mean his family regarded him as special. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/scient...was-a-bird-but-the-truth-was-something-sadder
 
Theres a sad story there, but we arent going to be able to hear it.
 
In 1974, the mummy of Ramesses II was sent on to Paris for preservation and maintenance work. Since French law required every person, living or dead to fly with a valid passport, Egypt was forced to issue a passport to the Pharaoh, 3,000 years after his death. Here is his passport (I wonder if he would have hated his photo like most of us do?)
20200915_141909.jpg
 
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... The museum's single human mummy, collected by Flinders Petrie in the early 20th century, is exceptional. It comes from the Fayum, where the cultures of Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt met, producing Egyptian-style mummies, sometimes with inscriptions in Greek, decorated with hauntingly beautiful portraits painted in encaustic wax.

Archaeologists have argued since their discovery about whether the images of men, women and children were idealised types or true portraits. Although a reconstruction of the head of one woman for the British Museum showed a close resemblance to her portrait, the Cambridge tests reveal a sadder truth. ...

The fidelity of these late-era mummy portraits seems to be variable. In a recent reconstruction it was determined the painted portrait was notably accurate, but age-progressed to make hte deceased boy appear substantially older.
Facial reconstruction reveals Egyptian 'mummy portrait' was accurate except for one detail

MummyBoyPortraitComparo.jpg

ust after the turn of the first millennium A.D., a young child living in Egypt contracted a deadly illness — most likely pneumonia — and died. His tiny body was prepared for mummification and burial; some of his organs were removed, his remains were wrapped in criss-crossed linen bindings and a portrait of his face was affixed to the front of his mummy.

This so-called "mummy portrait" was part of a popular tradition among some Egyptians in Greco-Roman times, from about the first through the third centuries A.D. But how accurate were these portraits? To find out, a team of scientists in Austria and Germany CT scanned this little boy's body and created a 3D digital reconstruction of his face.

The results show that the portrait was fairly accurate, except for one aspect — the artist made the youngster look older than his 3 or 4 years. ...

The two are so similar, the portrait "must have been prepared briefly before or after his death," Nerlich said.

This wasn't always the case for mummy portraits. Previous studies of adult individuals whose mummies were affixed with portraits shows that while some are very similar to reality, others are not; one mummy, this one of an older man with a white beard, showed a portrait of the man when he was young, while another known as "The Glyptothek Mummy" had a portrait of a different person, based on the proportions of the skull, previous research revealed. ...

FULL STORY (With Video & Additional Photos):
https://www.livescience.com/mummy-portraits-egypt-accuracy.html
 
Bombard a mummy with radiation, discover an amulet, this will not end well ...

Thanks to a bit of help from a particle accelerator, scientists have discovered an unusual amulet interred with a 2000-year-old mummy.

The mummy comes from a northern Egyptian necropolis excavated in 1910. Researchers first placed the remains in a computerized tomography scanner, which has been used in the past to peer beneath mummy bandages. That created the image above: a skeleton with a few dozen small artifacts.

The scientists then took the ancient body to a synchrotron particle accelerator facility at Argonne National Laboratory, where they used intense x-ray beams to identify the materials used to make those artifacts. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/atom-smasher-unearths-surprises-hidden-2000-year-old-mummy
 
Archaeologists Look Inside Egyptian Mummies First Found in 1615 Without Opening Them

Source: sciencealert.com
Dare: 11 November, 2020

Two ancient mummies discovered in a rock-cut tomb in Egypt more than 400 years ago are finally spilling their secrets, now that scientists have CT scanned their remains, a new study finds.

Both mummies, as well as a third on display in Egypt, represent the only known surviving 'stucco-shrouded portrait mummies', from Saqqara, an ancient Egyptian necropolis.

Unlike other mummies, who were buried in coffins, these individuals were placed on wooden boards, wrapped in a textile and a "beautiful mummy shroud", and decorated with 3D plaster, gold and a whole-body portrait, said study lead researcher Stephanie Zesch, a physical anthropologist and Egyptologist at the German Mummy Project at Reiss Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany.

Now, CT (computed tomography) scans reveal that at least one of these three stucco-shrouded portrait mummies was buried with organs (even the brain) and that the two females were interred with beautiful necklaces, the researchers found.

The CT scans also showed that after the deaths of these individuals - a man, woman and teenage girl dating to the late Roman period (30 BCE to CE 395) - their mummies were interred with artifacts likely thought useful in the afterlife, including coins that were possibly meant to pay Charon, the Roman and Greek deity thought to carry souls across the River Styx.

[...]

https://www.sciencealert.com/archaeologists-finally-peer-inside-egyptian-mummies-first-found-in-1615
 
This is unusual ... A recently discovered Egyptian mummy had been prepared for the afterlife with a tongue of gold.
Mummy with a gold tongue found in Egypt

Archaeologists have found a 2,000-year-old mummy with a gold tongue at an ancient Egyptian site called Taposiris Magna.

Embalmers perhaps placed the golden tongue on the mummy to ensure that the deceased would be able to speak in the afterlife, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said in a statement released Jan 29.

For instance, if the golden-tongued mummy encountered Osiris, the god of the underworld, in the afterlife, they would have needed to be able to speak to the god, the statement said. It isn’t clear if the mummy had a speech impediment when they were alive. It’s also not clear why the tongue was made out of gold specifically. ...

FULL STORY (With Photo): https://www.livescience.com/mummy-with-gold-tongue-discovered.html
 
Newly published research describes the first Egyptian mummy that was repaired using a layer of mud underneath the (re-?) wrappings.
New study uncovers rare "mud carapace" mortuary treatment of Egyptian mummy

New analysis of a 20th Dynasty mummified individual reveals her rare mud carapace, according to a study published February 3, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE ...

Studies of mummified bodies from the late New Kingdom to the 21st Dynasty (c. 1294-945 BC) have occasionally reported a hard resinous shell protecting the body within its wrappings, especially for royal mummies of the period. Here, {the authors ...} describe their discovery of a rare painted mud carapace enclosing an adult mummy in Sydney's Chau Chak Wing Museum.

Sir Charles Nicholson bought the mummified body, lidded coffin, and mummy board as a set during a trip to Egypt in 1856-7, donating it to the University of Sydney in 1860. The coffin inscription identifies the owner as a titled woman named Meruah, and the iconography dates it to approximately 1000 BC. Though the mummified individual underwent a full computed tomography (CT) scan in 1999, the authors rescanned the body for the current study using updated technology. ...

The current analysis of the mummification technique and radiocarbon dating of textile samples from the linen wrappings place the mummified individual in the late New Kingdom (c. 1200-1113 BC). This means the body is older than the coffin, suggesting local 19th century dealers placed an unrelated body in the coffin to sell as a complete set. The new scans also revealed the extent and nature of the mud carapace, showing the mud shell fully sheaths the body and is layered within the linen wrappings. Images of the inmost layers indicate the body was damaged relatively shortly after initial mummification, and the mud carapace and additional wrappings applied to reunify and restore the body. In addition to its practical restorative purpose, the authors suggest the mud carapace gave those who cared for the deceased the chance to emulate elite funerary practices of coating the body in an expensive imported resin shell with cheaper, locally available materials. ...

Though this mud carapace treatment has not been previously documented in the literature, the authors note it's not yet possible to determine how frequent this treatment may have been for non-elite mummies in the late New Kingdom of ancient Egypt ...

The authors add: "The mud shell encasing the body of a mummified woman within the textile wrappings is a new addition to our understanding of ancient Egyptian mummification."

FULL STORY: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/p-nsu012721.php

See Also:
https://www.livescience.com/ancient-egyptian-mud-mummy.html
https://www.sciencealert.com/archae...gyptian-mummy-wrapped-in-a-strange-mud-cocoon
 
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Here are the bibliographic particulars and abstract for the research paper on the 'mud carapace' mummy. The full paper can be downloaded at the link below.

Multidisciplinary discovery of ancient restoration using a rare mud carapace on a mummified individual from late New Kingdom Egypt
Karin Sowada , Ronika K. Power, Geraldine Jacobsen, Timothy Murphy, Alice McClymont, Fiona Bertuch, Andrew Jenkinson, Jacinta Carruthers, John Magnussen
PLoS ONE 16(2): e0245247.
Published: February 3, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245247

Abstract
CT scans of an unnamed mummified adult from Egypt, now in the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney (NMR.27.3), reveal it to be fully sheathed in a mud shell or carapace, exposing a mortuary treatment not previously documented in the Egyptian archaeological record. The carapace was placed between layers of linen wrappings thus it was not externally visible. Radiocarbon dating of textile samples provide a range of c.1370–1113 cal BC (95.4% probability), with a median date of 1207 cal BC. When assessed against mummification techniques of the era, the individual is placed in the late 19th–20th Dynasty, at the later end of this date range. Multi-proxy analysis including μ-XRF and Raman spectroscopy of carapace fragments from the head area revealed it to consist of three layers, comprising a thin base layer of mud, coated with a white calcite-based pigment and a red-painted surface of mixed composition. Whether the whole surface of the carapace was painted red is unknown. The carapace was a form of ancient conservation applied subsequent to post-mortem damage to the body, intended to reconfigure the body and enable continued existence of the deceased in the afterlife. The carapace can also be interpreted as a form of elite emulation imitating resin shells found within the wrappings of royal bodies from this period.

SOURCE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245247
 
This is unusual ... A recently discovered Egyptian mummy had been prepared for the afterlife with a tongue of gold.

Update: Make that mummies (plural) ...

Archaeologists working at a burial site in Egypt have unearthed ancient mummies with golden tongues.

The team, headed by Kathleen Martinez of the University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, were working at the Taposiris Magna Temple in western Alexandria when they discovered 16 burial shafts dating from the Greek and Roman eras. ...

A number of "mummies in a poor state of preservation" were found inside the shafts, according to a Facebook post by Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. ...

The archaeologists discovered "remnants of gilded cartonnage" -- a case made of tightly fitting layers of linen or papyrus glued together -- the ministry said, as well "amulets of gold foil in the form of a tongue that were placed in the mouth of the mummy." This, they believe, was a special ritual to ensure the dead could speak to the court of the god Osiris in the afterlife. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/mummy-golden-tongue-scli-intl-scn/index.html
 
I wish to make a replica mummy case. I'd be grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of any documentation or guidance - so far, I've found nothing.
 
I wish to make a replica mummy case. I'd be grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of any documentation or guidance - so far, I've found nothing.
Are you intending to make it of authentic construction? If not, then you can probably figure it out yourself.
 
I wish to make a replica mummy case. I'd be grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of any documentation or guidance - so far, I've found nothing.

Egyptian coffins evolved over the centuries, so there are different styles and types.

https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/exhibits/online/mummification/artifacts6.html

John H. Taylor is considered a leading authority on Egyptian coffins. His short 1989 book Egyptian Coffins was published in paperback, and you should be able to find a used copy online.

Taylor edited a 2014 volume (of papers from a symposium) entitled Ancient Egyptian Coffins: Craft traditions and functionality. It can be accessed via Scribd if you subscribe or would be willing to try a 30-day trial subscription.

Detailed analyses of individual coffins are relatively rare. Harco Willems' The Coffin of Heqata is accessible in preview format at Google Books:

https://www.google.com/books/editio...dq=subject:"Coffin+texts"&printsec=frontcover

Hope this helps ...
 
Are you intending to make it of authentic construction? If not, then you can probably figure it out yourself.

Well, within reason. I didn't envisage going nuts and creating paint from scratch from crocodile blood, just get a tin from B&Q.

Egyptian coffins evolved over the centuries, so there are different styles and types.

https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/exhibits/online/mummification/artifacts6.html

John H. Taylor is considered a leading authority on Egyptian coffins. His short 1989 book Egyptian Coffins was published in paperback, and you should be able to find a used copy online.

Taylor edited a 2014 volume (of papers from a symposium) entitled Ancient Egyptian Coffins: Craft traditions and functionality. It can be accessed via Scribd if you subscribe or would be willing to try a 30-day trial subscription.

Detailed analyses of individual coffins are relatively rare. Harco Willems' The Coffin of Heqata is accessible in preview format at Google Books:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Coffin_of_Heqata/2fMiG2dGPpYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=subject:"Coffin+texts"&printsec=frontcover

Hope this helps ...

I did see that book by Taylor, but for £22 it's a slender volume. I'll probably go down to the library when they reopen.

That scribd thing has a 29-page PDF of a 483-page book, so not terribly illuminating.

Thanks y'all.
 
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I wish to make a replica mummy case. I'd be grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of any documentation or guidance - so far, I've found nothing.
Howdy Monsieur Cloaca! I'd recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Egyp...aterials+and+Industries&qid=1612812868&sr=8-1
You can use casein and there are good companies that make it with pigments added already:
https://www.milkpaint.com/old-fashioned-milk-paint
Or you could make your own paints by getting the base or making it yourself and adding red ocher powder, yellow ochre powder, real Egyptian blue --which you can buy, verdigris, and soot or burnt bone for black.
You could also use real tempera paint, which might be a bit harder to apply, if you are not used to applying paint.
You can get NUgold leaf --but it ain't the imperishable flesh of the gods.. You could cover everything with clear shellac when you are done --the debate is ongoing about Egyptian varnishes.
 
Cartonnage
https://papyri.tripod.com/texts/cartonnage.html
You could use a form to shape the coffin made of cartonnage strips and pieces before you painted it. Hide or fish glue was probably used for the cartonnage. Hide glue is a hassle and dries quickly, so you could use something else. Then there would probably be a layer of gesso --calcium carbonate in hide glue, as a ground before the painting was done --you could use acrylic gesso. Just depends on how far you want to go down the obsessive-compulsive rabbit hole of historical reenactment... :caution: :actw:
Oh! for the cartonnage you could do paper mache and even use cotton on the outer layer in place of linen if you wanted to.
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-paper-mache-mask-1106527
 
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Yes, beeswax was used extensively, and as a binder for pigment too. mixed with a drying oil like linseed oil it forms a matte oil painting medium. beeswax could be used as a sealer or mixed with pigment to outline the eyes of outside statues. It was also used in Greek and Roman statuary as a pigment binder for statuary. I think the black decorations on Tut's calcite items have beeswax in them, iirc. It was later used to create the encaustic paintings from the Fayum. This actually looks like a good site:
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/encaustic-ancient-painting-technique
 
Encaustic is a demanding medium, -yet I suspect part of the attraction is the process...and you can be confident your work will last 2000 years...
 
Encaustic is a demanding medium, -yet I suspect part of the attraction is the process...and you can be confident your work will last 2000 years...
Da Vinci tried it on a grand scale in a competition with Michelangelo, but had a hard time with it. His painting apparently still survives behind a wall built in front of it. One day we will see it again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Anghiari_(Leonardo)
https://www.italymagazine.com/dual-...ri-leonardos-lost-masterpiece-closer-we-think
 
New analysis of pharaoh Seqenenre Taa I's mummy indicates he waa killed (or executed) during his war to drive out the Hyksos occupiers.

Egyptian pharaoh was executed on the battlefield, mummy reveals
Egyptian pharaoh Seqenenre Taa II may have died on the battlefield, overwhelmed by attackers armed with daggers, axes and spears.

That's according to a new computed tomography (CT) study of the pharaoh's damaged mummy, which revealed new facial wounds that ancient embalmers tried to disguise. The pharaoh had a huge slice in his forehead, cuts around his eyes and cheeks, and a stab wound at the base of the skull that may have reached the brain stem. The attackers, it seems, surrounded the defeated ruler on every side.

"This suggests that Seqenenre was really on the front line with his soldiers, risking his life to liberate Egypt" ...

Seqenenre Taa II (also spelled Seqenenre Tao II) was the ruler of southern Egypt between about 1558 B.C. and 1553 B.C., during the occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos, a people who probably came from the Levant . The Hyksos controlled northern Egypt and required tribute from the southern part of the kingdom. According to fragmentary papyrus accounts, Seqenenre Taa II revolted against the occupiers after receiving a complaint from the Hyksos king that the noise of hippos in a sacred pool in Thebes was disturbing his sleep. The king lived in the capital city of Avaris, 400 miles (644 kilometers) away. On this trumped-up charge, the Hyksos king demanded the sacred pool be destroyed — a grave insult to Seqenenre Taa II. ...

The new study uses X-rays from multiple angles to build a 3D image of the pharaoh's mummy. The pharaoh's remains are in poor condition, with bones disarticulated and the head detached from the rest of the body. ...

Nevertheless, the wounds on the skull tell the story of a brutal death. ...

Early archaeologists had previously reported many of these wounds, but Saleem and her colleague, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, discovered a new set of skull fractures covered by embalming material. Concentrated on the right side of the skull, the damage seems to have been caused by a dagger and a heavy, blunt object, perhaps an ax handle.

The mummy's hands were flexed and clenched, but there were no defensive injuries on his forearms, leading the researchers to suggest that perhaps Seqenenre Taa II's hands were bound when he died. He may have been captured on the battlefield and executed by multiple attackers, Saleem said in the statement. ...

Seqenenre Taa II may have lost his life in battle, but his successors eventually won the war. ... Seqenenre Taa II's consort, Ahhotep I, likely acted as regent, continuing the rebellion against the Hyskos. When Seqenenre Taa II and Ahhotep I's son Ahmose I came of age, he inherited the throne and finally pushed out the foreign occupiers. Ahmose I would unify Egypt and launch the New Kingdom, the period of ancient Egypt's peak power between the 16th and 11th centuries B.C.

FULL STORY:
https://www.livescience.com/egyptian-pharaoh-battlefield-death.html

PUBLISHED RESEARCH REPORT:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.637527/full
 
Ancient Mummy Found Entombed in Strange Cocoon Never Seen by Archeologists

The discovery of a rare "mud mummy" from ancient Egypt has surprised archaeologists, who weren't expecting to find the deceased encased in a hardened mud shell.

The "mud carapace" is an unparalleled find; it reveals "a mortuary treatment not previously documented in the Egyptian archaeological record," the researchers wrote in the study, published online Wednesday (Feb. 3) in the journal PLOS One.

https://www.sciencealert.com/archae...gyptian-mummy-wrapped-in-a-strange-mud-cocoon
 
The new analysis of Seqenenre Tao reminds me of the slain naturally mummified warriors of Mentuhotep III (a bit earlier, but same military tech); these warriors were killed apparently trying to storm a fortification. Many were wounded with arrows and apparently left dying on the battlefield; they were given the coup de grace with a mace blow to the head, as some have injuries to their arms consistent with trying to protect themselves from such a blow. There used to be many more pictures of them (a whole group of warriors were found) online, but they were quite gruesome, and are gone now. Their average height was about 5'10" and they were very robustly built. Their hair appeared to be greased so it couldn't be grabbed by the enemy.
9670854.jpg


Archer's hand with wrist guard still attached, probably chopped off..:oops:

9671963.jpg
 
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