Pseudo Mummies or Mummified Foetuses?

I don't have the answer here but was prompted to write something by the recent interest in a newly discovered foetus mummy in the Fitzwilliam Museum and also one which we have known about for a couple of years from the Egypt Centre in Swansea. Both have been CT scanned to show that they have the remains of a foetus therein. Both are young. The Fitzwilliam one is estimated at 'no more than 18 weeks' and the Egypt Centre one at 12-16 weeks.

W1013. This was first thought to be fake because of its meaningless hieroglyphs and because the X-ray showed no bones

CT scan showing foetus and placental sac

The Egypt Centre example, was at first thought to be a pseudo-mummy, partly on the grounds that the hieroglyphs down the centre are false, and partly because when we had it X-rayed nothing can be seen. The story of it and more detail on the findings are available here.

There are very many pseudo-mummies in museums around the world, and many have been shown by X-rays to contain a few random bones (Piombino-Mascal, et al. 2014), sometimes not human. However, some have been X-rayed, but not CT scanned, and seem to show nothing.

However, with foetal mummies X-rays may very well not show bones (Germer et al 1994). The bones would have been far too small to appear. But, could it be that, like the Egypt Centre example, a CT scan, might show foetal remains.

Pseudo-mummies are often small, no more than 50cm long, and certainly some, as stated above, are fake, in that they may either not contain bones or not be ancient Egyptian. Some of these were made for 18th and 19th century century collectors, looking for mummies to use in medicines or as souvenirs of Egypt. Some may even have been faked in ancient times by unscrupulous embalmers, or even perhaps, by individuals in ancient times wanting a burial for a preterm infant, where the remains were not available.

However, there are projects underway examining 'pseudo-mummies'. For example the Vatican Mummy Project, and work carried out at Manchester. Hopefully, as their work progresses we will have more light on ancient Egyptian burial practices regarding foetal remains, as well as on genuine pseudo-mummies, both ancient Egyptian and more recent.

Further Reading

Germer, R., Kischkewitz, H. Lünning, M. 1994. Pseudo-mumien der ägyptischen Sammlung, Berlin, SAK, 21, 81-94.

Piombino-Mascal, D, Jankauskas, R., Snitkuviene, A. McKnight, L., Longo, M. and Longo, S. 2014 Radiological assessment of two pseudo-mummies from the National Museum of Lithuanaia, JSSEA, 40, 69-77. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284869488_Egyptian_pseudo-mummies (accessed May 2016).

Plaster casts, class and art. CIPEG 2015.

We have a handling tray of real ancient artefacts (not masterpieces) for all visitors to enjoy at the Egypt Centre because we believe in the importance of handling the real thing (see the picture)

But have still been thinking about some of the things I learnt from CIPEG 2015. Something that came out time and time again was how in the early days of museums (what one might consider early varied from museum to museum), copies of masterpieces could be held to be more important than ‘second rate’ actual objects. Interesting and completely opposite to what I had hitherto believed. I always like the idea of the real object, even if grotty because of its magical contagion value. That’s why I got interested in ‘old things’ and ended up working in museums, because ‘old things’ are somehow linked directly to the past and can somehow transport you there. And of course, I have grown up in the modern western tradition with its emphasis on ‘authenticity’ (whatever that means). So, my take on plaster casts was that they may be beautiful but they are only real in so far as there post manufacture history is concerned. If they had value it was more to do with the recent past, perhaps as evidence for changes in what was considered important in Egyptology. Additionally, to be honest, I don’t know what masterpieces are. I believe others claim they have to be aesthetically beautiful and fairly rare? So a beautiful black-topped redware pot wouldn’t count as a masterpiece. What if it was an unusual shape?

But to return to the point, it seems that generally the real artefacts, even if common and ugly have gained more importance, particularly in the 20^th century. So how and why did things change? Well, I have read some interesting stuff by Alice Stevenson. It can be accessed here. She shows how the partage system and Petrie’s distribution of finds to museums meant that the ‘grotty’ items, typical of most archaeological excavations, became increasingly valued. At CIPEG 2015 we learnt from Alice Williams (an ex- Egypt Centre volunteer now doing her PhD at Oxford :-) ) about how Petrie’s exhibitions of items in London were so well attended. Maybe these exhibitions too helped show ‘the general public’ what real excavated remains were like, that they were rarely masterpieces of ‘art’, but nevertheless of value.  Additionally too, one may expect that the increase in the belief in the importance of ‘science’ and technology, also meant that everyday artefacts were more valued.

But, I am wondering if there could be a class element to all this?  Could it be that the masterpieces were more inclined to be valued by those well-educated, elite individuals with the necessary training, those brought up learning the classics and appreciating art?

One might argue that archaeology is associated with the non-elite, technology and archaeology; and classics with the elite and written text. Chris Stray has written on this. The growth in the importance of the everyday object, as opposed to the masterpiece, could also be bound up with increasing influence by the non-elite, less interested in aesthetics and more interested in technology? Perhaps it’s still so. There are different tribes in Egyptology. I wonder if the backgrounds to those interested in ‘art’ differ markedly from those interested in say, technology?

I am also thinking, should we make more use of our plaster casts? We only have a couple, but they are copies of famous things elsewhere. Should we use them in teaching? As CIPEG taught me, other museums do. Nika Lavrentyeva gave an excellent talk on the use of plaster casts in the Pushkin Museum. I’m not sure I feel so excited about copies as the real thing, but maybe that is a result of my background. 

Stray, C., 1998. Classics Transformed. Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830-1960. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

An unusual souvenir?

Is this a rare souvenir? Or is it an attempt to deliberately deceive? 

This artefact is made from pottery and shows the prenomen of Rameses II. It is on display in the Egypt Centre. It was purchased at auction by Wellcome in 1934.

Such objects are often mistaken for the bases of funerary cones, however they are an early form of copy. It would be unlikely to simply have the base of a cone surviving. 

You can see that this has a cartouche of a king’s name. One of the things that makes it even more certain that they are fakes is that kings did not have funerary cones. Most, unlike ours, bear the cartouche of Ramesses III. So ours is a bit unusual.

Cyril Aldred (1957) recognised these as forgeries based on funerary cones. He quotes an 1884 letter from Charles Edwin Wilbour which says ‘I visited the woman Giudeeyeh, who showed me the (modern) stamp from which she moulds and bakes the round brick stamps of Rameses III, that are always offered to you in his temple at Medinet Haboo. She lives north of Yussuf and I encouraged her industry; it saves monuments from destruction.’

Apparently, such items also turn up today on ebay.

With thanks to Tom Hardwick for drawing our attention to ours.

References

Aldred, C. 1957. ‘The Funerary Cones’ of Ramesses III’. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 43, 113.

There is some more about these here: http://www.collector-antiquities.com/real-or-fake/fake-egyptian/fake-funerary-cones/fake-egyptian-funerary-cones-2/fake-funerary-cones-page-3.html

A Mummified Baby?

Addendum: since this article was written a slightly older foetus has been found at the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge, What both show is that we should not rely on X-rays but rather CT scans for such tiny mummies. I wonder how many more are extant in museums.

W1013 (left) is part of the Wellcome collection at Swansea University’s Egypt Centre. It came to Swansea in 1971. Unfortunately we do no not know from where Henry Wellcome obtained it. It measures 52 cm long and is carefully, though not over elaborately, painted. The style fits with what might be expected of a 26^th Dynasty (c.600BC) mummy. However, the inscriptions on the front and back are meaningless. Could this suggest that this means that the artefact is a fake?

In fact, it is not unusual for sham hieroglyphs to be placed on coffins. For example, several of the Twenty-first Dynasty intrusive coffins (c. 900BC) found in the Nineteenth Dynasty tomb of Iurudef at Saqqara, the Memphite necropolis, are also inscribed with mock hieroglyphs (Martin 1992: 144-145). Petrie (1893: 124-5) discusses sham inscriptions of 22 to 25^th Dynasty on coffins at Lahun and suggests they were due to maker not being literate. Evidently it was important to put hieroglyphic signs upon coffins, perhaps as a magical aid to the afterlife.

W1013 is the size of a very small child and is a case made of cartonnage (layers of linen stiffened with plaster or glue). The cartonnage case would have been made by forming the wet cartonnage around a disposable core (possibly clay and straw).  A hole could be cut in the back and under the feet in order to removed the core and place the mummy therein. Once the cartonnage was dry and stiff the piece could be covered with another thin layer of plaster and painted. On some cartonnage cases of this date you can see where the case was laced up. EC1064b, for example shows lacing holes.

The mummy is shown wearing a heavy, yellow and blue striped wig and a wide collar. Striped wigs are most common on male coffins, but are not uncommon on those of women (Taylor 1984: 51). The face is painted reddish-brown, a colour usually associated with men in ancient Egypt.  The body is decorated with a criss-cross pattern of rhombus shapes perhaps imitating the bead net placed over some other mummies. It has also been suggested that this pattern is reminiscent of feathers, or even the stars of the night sky. The pattern can be seen on several mummy related artefacts in the Egypt Centre, for example: EC232 (a Sokar hawk); W2001 (a Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figure); Osiris himself is can be seen wearing a rhomboid patterned garment on W1042 (a pink Roman Period coffin) and some of our Soter-type shroud fragments of the Roman Period.

But the question remains, is there a child in this mummy case? In 1998 Singleton hospital kindly agreed to X-ray the cartonnage case but the results were inconclusive. Then on 28^th April Swansea Univerity’s Paola Griffiths of Clinical Imaging College of Medicine kindly CT scanned the artefacts. This showed most of the interior was taken by folded of a material, presumably linen bandages and within that an area is a darker area about 10cm long which appears to be a foetus (in foetal position and with placental sac) and what could be a femur. The length of the femur together with the size of the dark patch is consistent with that of a 12-16 week old foetus. Another dark patch suggests and amulet and there are several areas with dark circles resembling strings of beads or tassels. It is not unusual for strings of beads to be placed loose in mummy wrappings of this date. For example, the British Museum mummy EA6676.

Here are the scans:

In contrast to the usual practice in the west today, it seems that the foetus could often be treated with care in ancient Egypt. Two coffins holding the foetuses were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. In New Kingdom (c.1550-1070BC) Deir el-Medina, a part of the Eastern cemetery seems to have been set aside for child burials but also foetuses and even placentas in bloody cloths (Bruyère 1937; Anthes 1943). The placenta was believed to represent the twin of the self (Pinch 1994:130) and so was disposed of with care too.

It is sometimes claimed that because there were so many deaths of young children, as well as miscarriages, in the ancient world, that the ancients became ‘hardened’ to such tragedies. However, it is clear from the fact that foetuses and infants were buried with care, that such losses were not treated casually. We can imagine that the probable foetus within W1013 represents someone’s terrible loss; an occasion of great grief and public mourning.

A little bit more on the mummy here.

Adams, C.V.A. `The manufacture of ancient Egyptian cartonnage cases', Smithsonian Journal of History, vol. 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1966), 55-66.

Anthes, R. 1943. Die Deutschen Grabungen auf der Westseite von Theben in den Jahren 1911-1913. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Instituts für Ägyptiwschen Altertumskunde in Kairo 12 (1): 1-72.

Bruyère, B. 1937. Rapport sur les Fouilles de Deir el Médineh (1934-1935), Deuxième Partie FIFAO 15. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.

Martin, G.T. The Hidden Tombs of Memphis: New Discoveries from the Time of Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great. London: Thames and Hudson. 

Petrie, W.M.F. 1893, Ten Years Digging in Egypt 1881-1893. London: The Religious Tract Society.

Pinch, G. 1994. Magic in Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Trust.

Taylor, J. 1984 ‘A Priestly Family of the 25th Dynasty’, Chronique de Égypte, 59: 27-57