Feature Article on the Mummy of Nehemes-Bastet

From swissinfo.ch

Feb 28, 2012 - 11:59

Mummy discovery reveals ancient secrets
by Fatiha Temmouri, Valley of the Kings, swissinfo.ch

A Swiss team has uncovered a mummy in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings – the first of its kind since the exhumation of Tutankhamen in 1922.

The Valley of the Kings is like a Holy Grail for Egyptologists. Situated on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor, it is the burial site of many pharaohs and members of royal families or powerful nobles of the Egyptian Empire.

It was here, in 1922, that the most famous discovery in the history of Egyptology was made: the tomb of Tutankhamen, which until now has been the only intact example of its kind.

The latest find, which has created quite a stir, began on January 25, 2011, as part of clean-up work by a team of researchers from Basel University.

“On this famous January 25, we were cleaning a previously discovered tomb,” Susanne Bickel, professor at Basel University and head of the Swiss archaeological team, told swissinfo.ch.

“We were building a low wall around the tomb when all of a sudden we hit the upper edge of something…”

Bickel said they first thought they were dealing with rubble or an unfinished building.

“Imagine our surprise when we realised it was probably another tomb. We’d never have thought two tombs could be so close to each another.”

But initially the find remained in the sand. At the beginning of 2011, Egypt was in full revolution; rumours of pillaging spread. Out of concerns for their safety, the team returned to Switzerland. A metal cover was placed over the opening to the tomb and the experts waited for a more favourable time to go exploring.

Intact

This turned out to be January 2012, when the team received official authorisation from the Egyptian authorities to carry on with the excavation.

“We were in a hurry to find out what was in the tomb,” Bickel said. “It took us four days to cross a well shaft. We managed to slide an arm in to take some photos with a camera. We saw an untouched tomb and a sarcophagus which was completely intact – unlike most of the ones we usually see.”

The team, protected from the searing desert sun by a tent, described a sarcophagus which was quite soberly decorated, without any embellishments.

“There’s no decoration on the sides,” said one researcher. “It’s very thick, very beautiful wood. We knew the tomb had been built in the 15th century BC, but we’ve discovered that the sarcophagus dates from the ninth century BC.”

This meant they could deduce two significant facts, he added.

“We’ve concluded from the fact that the tomb dates from the 15th century BC that there was a second burial 500 years later,” he said.

“Second, the simplicity of the sarcophagus makes us think that in the ninth century, during the 22nd Dynasty, a burial consisted of a humble sarcophagus and a simple stela [a sort of gravestone]. Unlike in the 15th century, during the 18th Dynasty, when ceramics and personal property were very popular.”

Singer?

Having examined the inscriptions, which have yet to be completely decrypted, the scientists say they are dealing with a woman called Nehemes-Bastet, which means “May the goddess Bastet protect her”.

“What is astonishing is that the sarcophagus is two metres long, but the mummy, which is perfectly preserved, is only 1.55m,” Bickel said.

“We think the deceased was a singer for Amun-Ru [one of the most widely recorded Egyptian gods]. Her title shows she was part of the elite. She probably acted as a priestess from time to time during major processions.”

Bickel said it was the first time a tomb had been found in the Valley of the Kings of a woman who was not linked to the royal families.

Secrets

The aim of the Basel University project is to analyse the non-royal tombs found in the side valley leading to the tomb of Thutmose III, the sixth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. Until now, these tombs have hardly been studied.

“Many are even completely unknown,” Bickel explained. “We search them, document their architecture and try to find among the tonnes of debris some signs that enable us to say what they were used for – and possibly the person or people who had the privilege of being buried in this valley, near the pharaohs.”

The discovery of the sarcophagus belonging to Amun-Ra’s singer turns the spotlight on another period of the valley’s history: that of the ninth century BC, when the tombs were re-used for a second time.

The mummy has yet to be analysed. Much remains to be learnt from the woman who escaped the pillages and struggles of the time to reach us intact and reveal a few of her secrets.

Fatiha Temmouri, Valley of the Kings, swissinfo.ch
(Translated from French by Thomas Stephens)

700 Year Old Chinese Mummy Discovered - In Excellent Condition!



700 years old!  So say the Chinese.

 I imagine that already biotech firms, chemical firms, medical firms and cosmetic firms all around the globe are, as one, saying WHAT THE HELL WAS IN THAT BROWN LIQUID INSIDE THE COFFIN?'
Absolutely incredible find -- the degree of preservation on this lady's corpse is remarkable.  Story and lots of phots online at The Mail Online that you should check out now, because I don't know how long they'll be available and I've only saved one to publish here:

She's aged well: Face of incredibly preserved 700-year-old mummy found by chance by Chinese road workers
By Oliver Pickup
Last updated at 2:55 PM on 4th March 2011

[Excerpted] These incredible pictures show a 700-year-old mummy, which was discovered by chance - by road workers - in excellent condition in eastern China.

The corpse of the high-ranking woman believed to be from the Ming Dynasty - the ruling power in China between 1368 and 1644 - was stumbled across by a team who were looking to expand a street.

And the mummy, which was found in the city of Taizhou, in the Jiangsu Province, along with two other wooden tombs, offers a fascinating insight into life as it was back then.

Discovered two metres below the road surface, the woman's features - from her head to her shoes - have retained their original condition, and have hardly deteriorated.

When the discovery was made by the road workers, late last month, Chinese archaeologists, from the nearby Museum of Taizhou, were called into excavate the area, the state agency Xinhua News reported.

They were surprised by the remarkably good condition of the woman's skin, hair, eyelashes and face. It was as though she had only recently died.

Her body, which measures 1.5 metres high, was found at the construction site immersed in a brown liquid inside the coffin.

And the coffin was opened earlier this week, on March 1, much to the excitement of the local city - and further afield. And the right hand of the 700-year-old mummy showed her preserved skin, and a ring.

The mummy was wearing traditional Ming dynasty costume, and also in the coffin were bones, ceramics, ancient writings and other relics.

Director of the Museum of Taizhou, Wang Weiyin, told Xinhua that the mummy's clothes are made mostly of silk, with a little cotton.

He said usually silk and cotton are very hard to preserve and excavations found that this mummifying technology was used only at very high-profile funerals.

Updated March 7, 2011:

Well of all the cheats -- this mummy wasn't discovered recently by road workers - a series of excavations beginning in 1979 through 2008 uncovered this mummy and others from the Ming dynasty, and they are about 400 years old.  Also, the recovered burials were evidently ordinary people, not "high profile" - as this People's Daily Online article notes that there were little sacrificial items in the coffins.  Here is the report from People's Daily Online -- compare to the above report from The Mail Online.  Well, I should know better than to trust The Mail for accurate reporting!

500 Year Old Korean Mummy Found

From Joong Ang Daily
Joseon-era mummy found at construction site

임진왜란 이전 여성 미라 발굴
May 14, 2010

A mummy estimated to be about 500 years old was recently unearthed at a construction site on the outskirts of Seoul, a research institute said yesterday.

The 154-centimeter (5-foot) tall female mummy was discovered early last month at an industrial complex being built in Osan, some 55 kilometers south of Seoul, by a group of scholars and researchers from the Seokyeong Cultural Properties Research Institute.

Another mummy, presumed to be that of her husband, is also expected to be uncovered, as his tomb was found next to hers, they said.

The figure was found in a wooden coffin with a nameplate which indicates her husband’s position in the government. She is presumed to be a 16th century noblewoman who lived during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), based on her garments and hairstyle, the researchers said.

She was wrapped in shrouds and buried with dresses and accessories, including a ceramic pot, a comb and hair pins.

“It’s very hard to discover a mummy dressed in perfect clothes and preserved in perfect condition like this,” said Kim Woo-rim, who led the excavation. “This mummy will help us study life during the early days of the Joseon Dynasty.”

Researchers said the noblewoman appears to have died of a chronic disease given her gaunt face and body, and “twisted lungs.”

In the early days of Joseon, it was customary to bury a nobleperson in an airtight coffin covered with plaster. As a result, the bodies are naturally mummified in a vacuum.

“In Korea, (a fair number of) mummies estimated to be from the Joseon era have been discovered. This is attributable to Joseon burial rituals,” said Jeon Sung-ho, a senior researcher at the institute.

Korean mummmies differ from Egyptian ones in that the internal organs remain inside the bodies, giving researchers an opportunity to conduct tests.

Yonhap

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Interesting - but why did they choose to strip the mummy of her shrouds and photograph her naked?  Rather disrespectful, considering she was discovered fully covered in well-preserved shrouds according to the article.  Why not instead show a picture of her as she was originally found rather than stripped bare?  There is no scientific reason for presenting the mummy photographed in such a way to the general public.

CT Scan Reveals She Isn't the She They Thought!

From the Quad-City Times Overhauled mummy exhibit debuts today at Putnam Museum Kay Luna Posted: Saturday, August 22, 2009 2:00 am So, she isn't the woman everyone thought she was - and no one will ever know her true identity. Sound familiar? Well, it happens, even among ancient Egyptian mummies. New research being unveiled today at the Putnam Museum shows its iconic female mummy - known as Isis Neferit, a chantress in the Temple of Isis about 3,000 years ago - isn't Isis after all. The sarcophagus, or coffin, on display at the Davenport museum belongs to Isis. It has her name written all over it in hieroglyphics. But the mummified woman inside the coffin is now believed to have died more than 600 years after the coffin was created. And that woman didn't die when she was 20-25 years old like the old plaques in the Putnam's downstairs Egyptian gallery used to state. Instead, she was 40-45 years old - and slightly taller and heftier than museum staff always thought, Putnam curator Christina Kastell said Friday. How does she know? The new information - debuting today in the totally overhauled "Unearthing Ancient Egypt" gallery at the museum - was discovered after CT scans were done on the mummies two years ago at Genesis Medical Center in Davenport. Not only did the medical staff there help decipher the scans, but someone also posted a video of them on YouTube. An Egyptologist, Jonathan Elias of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium in Pennsylvania, watched it online and contacted Kastell at the Putnam, asking for permission to do further research on the museum's two mummies. His study of the coffins and funeral masks was crucial as the museum updated historical information that now appears in the gallery, said Kim Findlay, the Putnam's president and CEO. Elias also believes the Putnam's male mummy comes from a different era than the coffin he was found in, Findlay added. In the early 1900s, mummies often became separated from their proper coffins as people trying to make a buck or two retrieved artifacts - dug up from ancient Egyptian burial plots - and sold them to tourists. The B.J. Palmer estate donated the Isis mummy and coffin to the museum in the 1960s, but the Palmers did not buy the mummy in Egypt, museum spokesperson Lori Arguello said. The male mummy and coffin were purchased by Charles A. Ficke in 1896 in Egypt. Ficke was a world traveler and a former Davenport mayor. After two years of research and several weeks of construction work, visitors will now enter a "tomb-like, immersive" exhibit to see the mummies and other artifacts, including some previously not displayed, found in the museum's huge storage area. An old bronze bust-statue of the female mummy has been replaced with a new bust created by Elias, based on the CT scans that show the woman's bone structure. "They have the same narrow face and pointed chin, but her face is a little fatter," Kastell said. "She wasn't as skinny as she appears now." Her nose and hairstyle are different, too, based on the Egyptologist's studies of people from Akhmim, where this mummy is believed to have been buried. The display blends the old with the new, featuring the mummies alongside touch-screen technology and a 24-hour Web cam. Findlay admitted that taking on a remodeling project of this size and cost - it represents more than $50,000 worth of work - is almost unheard of in an economy such as the present one, but "it unfolded through good fortune in partnerships." The bulk of the project was paid for through grants and in-kind contributions.

Hawass Couldn't Wait

Like a first grader who has to pee and hops from one foot to the other broadcasting his intentions, Zahi Hawass just couldn't wait, and foolishly opened the rare intact sarcophagus recently discovered in a Saqqara burial chamber (along with as many as 29 other mummies, including the mummy of a dog). I hope the ghost of that mummy haunts the jerk for the rest of his life! This is an act of gross malfeasance, done purely for the publicity. Opening such a rare prize in totally uncontrolled conditions! What a schmuck! The Egyptians should run the dude out of office and strip him of his fancy title and salary. And he calls himself a scientist, an egyptologist. Ha! (Image: photo credit (Mike Nelson/Pool/Reuters) The idiot Hawass poses in a corner of the burial chamger while the skull of the mummy is exposed to an uncontrolled environment. It would serve him right if that mummy disintegrates before they can get it to Cairo.) Egypt finds rare intact mummy near Saqqara pyramid By Cynthia Johnston Cynthia Johnston – Wed Feb 11, 9:48 am ET SAQQARA, Egypt (Reuters) – Egyptian archaeologists found a rare intact mummy dating to pharaonic times when they opened a sealed limestone sarcophagus on Wednesday in the shadow of the world's oldest standing step pyramid at Saqqara. The well-preserved mummy, which escaped plunder by thieves in ancient times, could contain scores of gold amulets in the folds of its linen wrappings, Egypt's chief archeologist Zahi Hawass said. "It is a typical mummy of the 26th dynasty...This mummy should contain amulets, golden amulets, to help the deceased go to the afterlife," Hawass told reporters after ascending from the mummy's burial chamber, accessible only by a rope pulley. "To find an intact mummy inside a limestone sarcophagus is not common. It's rare. It's very rare," he said. Archaeologists found the ancient mummy when they removed the lid of its sarcophagus deep in a burial chamber in the desert on the western side of Saqqara, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Cairo. Thirty other mummies were also found in the same room. The 26th dynasty ruled Egypt from about 664 to 525 BC, immediately before Persians occupied the area. Hawass said the mummy found in the sarcophagus, believed to be the original owner of the burial room, would undergo scans to determine if it did contain amulets. It is unusual to find intact burials in well-known necropolises such as Saqqara, which served the nearby city of Memphis, because thieves scoured the area in ancient times. MORE TOMBS COULD BE FOUND Hawass said the mummy's burial room, built via a shaft next to a much older burial chamber, was one of three tombs archaeologists had recently unearthed near Saqqara that were thought to be part of a much larger cemetery. "I always say that we have found 30 percent of the Egyptian monuments, and still 70 percent is buried underneath the ground," Hawass said. "We expect to discover more tombs. You have to wait. Every week (there) will be a tomb to be discovered in this area. This is the beginning of the cemetery," he said. The identity of the main mummy found in the tomb was not known, but Hawass said he would have been wealthy. The lid of his sarcophagus was cracked, but Hawass said it had been sealed with mortar in antiquity, preserving the mummy. "If a mummy is inside the limestone sarcophagus, it means this person is rich," he said. Of the roughly 30 mummies found inside the burial chamber alongside the limestone sarcophagus and its mummy, Hawass said some would have been poor and some wealthy. They may have been relatives of the original owner. Most of the additional mummies were found in niches in the walls of the burial room, about 11 meters (34 feet) below ground level, and they included four mummies buried with a dog. But the finds also included two anthropoid wood coffins with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Hawass found a 26th dynasty mummy in one of the wood coffins when he opened it on Wednesday after brushing away loose sand. The other wood coffin was deemed too fragile, and would be opened later after conservation efforts. (Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

New Scanning Technology Yields Fab Results

Story from the Telegraph.co.uk Images of 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy revealed by scanner Spectacular images from within the unopened casket of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy have been revealed using a hi-tech hospital scanner. Last Updated: 11:48PM GMT 08 Feb 2009 The elaborately decorated coffin contains the wrapped remains of Meresamun, a woman believed to have been a singer-priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC. Experts do not want to disturb the casket, which has remained sealed since Meresamun was laid to rest almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. But now cutting edge X-ray technology has allowed scientists to peer through the coffin and obtain astonishing 3D images of the mummy, still wrapped in her linen bandages. A state-of-the-art computed tomography CT scanner was used to peel away the layers and reveal Meresamun's skeleton. The mummy's remaining internal organs can be seen, as well as what appear to be stones placed in her eye sockets. Egyptologist Dr Emily Teeter, from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum, where a new exhibition featuring the mummy and CT images opens tomorrow, said: "It is so exciting to be able to see this. The mummy is still in the coffin. It is like having X-ray eyes to see the relationship between the coffin, the wrappings and amount of linen used." Meresamun's identity is unclear. Her name, shown in an inscription on the casket, means "She Lives for Amun" (an Egyptian god). According to the inscription she served as a "Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun", one of a number of priestess-musicians who performed during rituals dedicated to the god. Meresamun was one of the higher ranking "interior" singers, some of whom served members of the Egyptian ruling family. The scans suggest she was about five foot five inches tall and aged in her late 20s or early 30s when she died. She was an attractive woman with wide-set eyes, a symmetrical face, prominent cheekbones and a long neck. The cause of Meresamun's death is unknown, and all the more mysterious since she appears to have been in exceptionally good health. The state of her bones shows she enjoyed a nutritious diet and active lifestyle. Although she bore no signs of dental disease, her teeth were worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour. Early analysis suggests she had not given birth to any children. The sealed casket was bought in Egypt in 1920 by James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute. The coffin, made from cartonnage - a type of papier mache composed of layers of fabric, glue and plaster - is colourfully painted with pictures of gods and symbols and hieroglyphics relating to life after death. Earlier attempts to carry out scans of the casket in 1989 and 1991 produced disappointing fuzzy images. The new images were obtained using a Philips Brilliance iCT scanner, one of the most advanced available. The machine scanned 100 cross-section slices of the mummy per second, generating 30 billion individual measurements and producing 1,000 times more raw data than was collected in 1991. US radiologist Professor Michael Vannier, who led the scanner team, said: "The iCT scanner allows us to perform detailed analysis of very complex anatomy within seconds. "The pictures of the mummy are breathtaking, we could see subtle things - wear patterns on the teeth, a clear view of the embalming incision, precise indications of her age - that were not apparent before."

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Also see a full story on the scan at Archaeology Magazine online. dondelion and I were pleased to attend a lecture by Dr. Emily Teeter at the Milwaukee Public Museum - 2004 or 2005, forget exactly when, in conjunction with the mega-hit exhibit "The Quest for Immortality." We were both impressed with her lecture and her obvious depth of knowledge, but she was very approachable.

Mummy Dearest

Poor Mummy! Story from the Otago Daily Times (Dunedin, New Zealand) Mummy facing up to more scrutiny By John Gibb on Wed, 14 Jan 2009 However the Otago Museum's bandage-swathed mummy may have looked 2300 years ago, it certainly wasn't like film star Elizabeth Taylor. But Taylor's memorable portrayal of Cleopatra in the movie of the same name has left its mark, Dave Wright, the museum's collections, assets and research director, said yesterday - so much so that many people think any female Egyptian mummy would look like her. The museum will reveal more of its mummy's secrets at its "Egypt Unwrapped" day on January 28. A non-intrusive CT scan of the mummy at Dunedin Hospital in 2000, which was used to create a three- dimensional computer model, showed the mummified woman was not exactly a raven-haired beauty when she died. She had only six teeth and was likely to have been racked with pain from severe gum disease, including abscesses. She was aged about 35 - at a time when many people did not live much beyond 40 - and is believed to have been middle-class. Carbon-dating of linen from the mummy's wrappings and other analysis shows she lived during the Ptolemaic period (323BC to 30BC). The mummy was bought in Egypt by Dunedin businessman and philanthropist Bendix Hallenstein and given to the museum in 1893. On the Egypt theme day, museum visitors will see what University of Otago forensic specialists and others have done to reconstruct a facial likeness using only the skull of an unidentified person. Late last year, they used the 3D computer model of the mummy's skull to cast an exact copy in resin. This will be displayed, along with two plaster heads cast from it. They will be covered in clay, with a computer program used to calculate facial soft-tissue depths on the face and head. One head will be painted with skin-like tones to give an impression - believed to be about 95% accurate - of the Egyptian woman's appearance. This Saturday, the museum will also launch a contest encouraging the public to draw their predicted likeness of her. Mr Wright said the project was applying science to the mysteries of the past. "There's a hint of seeking the unknown."