The
Egypt Centre Bandage (EC951)
(Image
courtesy of the Egypt Centre, Swansea)
This is guest post by Beverley Rogers who has studied the item. Enjoy. Thank you Beverley.
In the downstairs gallery of
Swansea’s Egypt Centre, amongst the coffin fragments, mummy masks,
intricate bead work and an elaborate decorated mummy of an infant,
there is displayed an innocuous piece of bandage mounted onto
cardboard. Measuring 18.5 cm in length at its longest part and 9.5
cm in width, it is not the most beautiful or impressive of items that
the Egypt Centre has to offer its visitors to look at. But behind
this brown, stained piece of linen, there is a story that stands
testament to an unusual piece of social history. It is evidence of a
fashion undertaken during the Victorian period - one of which today
may appear unusual and even abhorrent to our modern ears -where
Egyptian mummies were unwrapped before public audiences in a form of
macabre entertainment under the guise of scientific endeavour.
The bandage was once part of the
Wellcome Collection, a diverse and eclectic mixture of objects
brought together by the American businessman, Sir Henry Wellcome
(1853-1936), who made his fortune by developing a multinational
pharmaceutical company. Wellcome’s collecting originally focused
on pieces that illustrated the development of medicine and medical
science. Such was his passion for collecting however, that he then
branched out to collect all manner of object themes. Egyptian
antiquity was just one part of a huge collection, which at its peak
is estimated to have contained five times more items than the Louvre.
Some of the objects obtained by Wellcome came from his own
excavations in Egypt; the majority, however, were acquired from other
private collections via auction houses and sales. His appetite for
purchasing huge numbers of objects, often in an indiscriminate
manner, was legendary amongst the auctions houses. Such was the
quantity and ferocity of his collecting, that on his death, many
objects lay still boxed in their original auction packing cases, not
having been opened from the date of his purchase. When the Wellcome
Trustees distributed Wellcome’s vast collection in the 1970s to
various museums and institutions,
the Egypt Centre took charge of ninety-two boxes of Egyptian
antiquities as part of a long-term loan from the Trustees. The
bandage formed a tiny part of the loan.
The
piece of linen (acquisition number EC951) is displayed in the Egypt
Centre’s House of Death and is mounted on a piece of card with an
accompanying label stating:
The
Palmer Collection
Mummy
Cloth
Unwound
at Lordship Lane Hall, about the year 1896
Egypt
No. 888
The
owner
of the ‘Palmer Collection’ is at the present time uncertain
as no suitable candidate has been identified from the Wellcome
archives. In 2005 the Egypt Centre attributed a previous owner of the
bandage as being the Reverend William MacGregor (1848-1922) and
Wellcome is known to have bought many items from the sale of the
MacGregor Collection in 1922 (the Egypt Centre now believes the
attribution to be a cataloguing mistake). An extensive search of the MacGregor
Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities
produced for the MacGregor Collection’s auction at Sotheby’s,
makes no mention however of the bandage in the featured lots.
MacGregor’s propensity for recording details of his objects’
provenance, coupled with Sotheby’s diligent recording of these
facts obtained through MacGregor’s own records, leads me to believe
that the bandage is not from his collection but instead acquired from
another unknown sale. Whilst the lack of information regarding its
previous ownership remains frustrating, the bandage’s more modern
history is still a valuable source of evidence of the strange world
of mummy unwrappings which gripped the middle of the nineteenth
century in Britain.
The practice of unwrapping a
mummy was a phenomenon mostly confined to the 19th
century, however the earliest recorded unwrapping can be dated to as
early as 1698 where Benoît de Maillet (1656-1738), Louis XIV’s
Consul in Cairo,
unwrapped a mummy in front of a select group of tourists. Scattered
references to mummy unwrappings are mentioned throughout the 18th
century, but it was really from the 1830s onwards that the desire to
unwrap ancient Egyptian cadavers became popular in conjunction with a
ready supply of mummy imports finding their way into Britain. These
exotic souvenirs of the extended Grand Tour, which by this time
included Egypt in its itinerary, found their way into Victorian
parlours, studies and sitting rooms.
Early nineteenth century
unwrappings, though somewhat lacking in analytical method, were first
conducted in a spirit of scientific enquiry with a minimum of general
public involvement. In the 1830s however, the process became more
of a public spectacle, fuelled by an event organised by Giovanni
Belzoni. Belzoni, a showman turned purveyor of Egyptian antiquities,
encouraged members of the public to view the unwrapping of a mummy as
part of a London exhibition of Egyptian antiquities, tomb replicas
and facsimiles acquired during his time in Egypt. The show, held at
the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, proved to be enormously popular,
attracting many visitors. One member of the audience, a London
surgeon by the name of Thomas Pettigrew, became inspired to perform
his own public unrollings, which he often accompanied with a lecture.
Tickets sold out quickly and distinguished guests, dignitaries and
medical professionals would attend the viewings, alongside members of
the public who were lucky enough to gain entry. Both Belzoni and
Pettigrew had a talent for showmanship and the mummy unwrappings
became in essence a ‘performance’ where the mummy was the central
passive actor. Whilst there were some attempts at serious study -
Pettigrew for example published his findings and wrote some seminal
works on the methods of mummification - the unrolling of the mummy
from its wrappings was no doubt attended by many people more for the
spectacle of the event than from any attempt at serious learning on
their part.
As travel to Egypt intensified
within the middle of the century, ancient Egypt became even more in
vogue. A ready supply of mummies and mummy body parts taken out of
Egypt as souvenirs, combined with the increased press coverage of
Belzonni and then Pettigrew’s unwrapping events, encouraged members
of the public to emulate dissection of the mummies they had acquired
within their own homes. Unwrapping a mummy became a popular dinner
party activity where guests were invited to a sumptuous meal followed
by the unrolling of the ancient ‘guest’. Often the mummy came
from the host’s own collection and invitations were such as those
issued by Lord
Londesborough in 1850, who promised ‘A
Mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past Two'.
Toward the latter half of the
century, examination of mummies became conducted on a more methodical
basis. Egyptology was developing as a discipline and recognition
that mummies were a source of important historical information
encouraged better recording and care. The thrill of a body being
unveiled however was still a heady draw for audiences and these
events continued to evoke large crowds albeit the premise of the
occasion was now on a more scientific footing. A common element of
mummy unwrappings was the giving of pieces of linen and bandage from
the mummy as souvenirs to the audience. The mounted bandage at the
Egypt Centre is an example of such a memento, which at the time of
unwrapping would still retain the faint scent of the unguents and
spices used to mummify the body.
The Egypt Centre’s bandage is
labelled as coming from an unwrapping held ‘about the year 1896’.
The approximation of the date suggests that it was mounted much later
after the event, implying that the exact date had been forgotten or
was unknown. The label also mentions the unwrapping took place at
Lordship Lane Hall but no such hall exists today. It has however
been possible to trace the exact date and venue for the unwrapping
due to a detailed eyewitness account of the event in The
Horniman Free Museum Seventh Annual Report
of 1897.
The mummy unwrapping took place
on Wednesday 24th
February 1897 – a year later than the label suggests -and the venue
was St Thomas Moore Hall, which was – and still remains – at 116
Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London SE22. The Annual
Report states that it
was conducted by Mr Henry William Mengedoht (1870 – 1939), before
an audience consisting of members of the Dulwich Scientific and
Literary Association. Mengedoht was an English Orientalist who had
studied within the department of Egyptology and Assyriology at the
British Museum. On this particular evening Mengedoht gave a lecture
culminating in the unwrapping of a female mummy from Memphis,
generously donated by Mr Frederick John Horniman, M.P., from his
collection of artifacts held at the nearby Horniman Museum. The
mummy had been bought that year, together with its coffin, in Cairo
where Horniman had paid £21 for them.
As part of the
evening’s event, Mr Horniman, a trader in tea, collector, public
benefactor and a member of the Egypt Exploration Fund’s Committee,
had also arranged for a selection of other ancient Egyptian objects
from the museum to be on show. The Annual
Report provides
details of the evening’s activities:
‘On
24 February 1897, Horniman presided at a lecture, ‘Mummies and
their History’, at the Dulwich Scientific and Literary Association.
The guest speaker, Professor H.W. Mengedoht, from the British
Museum, began by giving a graphic account of the different methods of
embalming and explained how such practices had varied at different
periods. He illustrated his paper by unrolling, with the help of
Quick, a mummy from the Horniman Museum collection. In a scene
redolent of the public dissection of corpses in the sixteenth century
anatomy theatres.
The
body, removed by Mengedoht from a coffin of painted sycamore, was
placed on a table before the audience. The lid of the coffin,
inscribed with the name Peta-Amen-Neb-Nest-Taiu,
was identified as a priestess of Amen-Ra and daughter of an officer
of high rank at Thebes. The body was covered in a shroud like
garment and secured to the body with diagonal patterned strips of
linen. Small in stature, the woman measured approximately five foot
in length. After examining the wrapped mummy for signs of
inscriptions or amulets and finding none, Mengedoht set about freeing
the mummy from her numerous bandages with the assistance of a
gentleman called Mr Quick. As he proceeded, he talked to the
assembled guests about what he was discovering. Fortunately the
bandages came away easily and Mengedoht did not have to resort to a
method used on one of his previous unwrappings where he had removed
both legs with a chopper.
‘The
bandages were numerous and of different texture, applied with great
neatness and precision. The limbs were separately bandaged. On the
ends of two of the bandages some hieroglyphical characters were
found, bearing reference to the date of the operation, etc…The
bandages being removed the body was exposed. The brain had been
extracted through the nostrils, and the viscera from the abdomen by
an incision in the left side, and returned into the cavity, which was
filled with the dust of some bitter wood. The nails on both the
hands and feet were perfect, and had been stained with hennah. No
scarabaei or other ornaments were found.’
Mengedoht’s
conclusions from his examination was that the female mummy was
between 60 and 70 years of age, that it was from Memphis and it dated
from about 1500 B.C. He also told the audience that she was a
‘daughter of an officer of high rank at Thebes (whose mummy is now
in the British Museum).’
The exposure of the body caused
much excitement and the audience was invited to inspect it. Thanks
were offered to Mengedoht ‘for
the treat he had offered them that night”
and finally “Mr
Horniman gave to each of the visitors present a small sample of the
mummy cloth, as a souvenir of the occasion.
The Egypt Centre bandage was one of these souvenirs. The Horniman
Museum also has a small box of mummy linen fragments which also came
from this unwrapping.
The
mummy’s immediate fate after the unwrapping was to reside, devoid
of her bandages, on display at the Horniman Museum within the
Egyptian room together with six other mummies. A guide dated 1904
from the Museum indicates that the coffin and mummy were still
displayed for several years later. Today the coffin lid is currently
on display in the Horniman Museum’s African World’s gallery
whilst the coffin and mummy are at its Study Collections Centre
(accession numbers 4510a-c). A little part of Peta-Amen-Neb-Nest’s
story however found itself travelling to Wales. The small piece of
linen stands testament to the fate of a large amount of Egyptian
mummies found in the Victorian period. The body of
Peta-Amen-Neb-Nest
was in fact one of the lucky ones, for many mummies were destroyed
upon their unwrapping or found themselves being thrown away as
rubbish. The names and personal histories of these unlucky ones will
never be remembered. Peta-Amen-Neb-Nes
however finds herself immortalized as part of British Victorian
history and as an interesting and unusual element in the history of
Egyptology.
(Image
of the Egyptian mummy coffin belonging to Peta-Amen-Neb-Nest-Taiu
from Levell (2000), 256).
About
the author
Beverley
Rogers is in the final year of her PhD at Swansea University, Wales.
She has been researching the Reverend William MacGregor (1848 –
1937) - an Egyptologist and collector of Egyptian antiquity – since
2005. Other areas of her research include the rise of Egyptology in
the Victorian period, the collectors and collecting habits of the
Victorian period, the history of museum collections and the modern
reception of ancient Egypt.
Biography
Dawson,
W. R. & Uphill, E. (1972). Who
was who in Egyptology.
London: Egypt
Exploration Society.
Forest
Hill and Sydenham Examiner
(26 February 1897).
Horniman
Museum (1904). A Guide
to the Collections of the Horniman Museum and Library.
London: London County Council.
Ikram,
S. & Dodson, A. (1998). The
Mummy in Ancient Egypt.
London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
Montserrat,
D. (1998). ‘Unidentified Human Remains: Mummies and the Erotics of
Biography” in D. Montserrat, ed., Changing
Bodies, Changing Meanings: Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity,
pp. 162-212. London: Routledge.
Quick
(1898). The Horniman
Free Museum Seventh Annual Report 1897 Events of the Year.
London: Horniman Museum.
Levell,
N. (2000). Oriental
Visions: Exhibitions, Travel, and Collecting in the Victorian Age.
London: Horniman
Musuem and Gardens and the Museu Antropológico da Universidade de
Coimbra.
Rogers,
B. (2012). Unwrapping the Past: Egyptian Mummies on Show in Popular
Exhibitions, Science and Showmanship, 1840-1910
Ed. J. Kember, J. Olunkette and J.A. Sullivan, 199-218.
My
thanks to Robert Storrie of the Horniman Museum for providing me with
archive information regarding the mummy and coffin. Thank you also
to the Egypt Centre for access to the object file and allowing me to
take photographs of the object.
