What's hidden in the sarcophagus? (original) (raw)
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Among the collections belonging to the National Museum of Lithuania at Vilnius, resides an ancient Egyptian coffin containing a mummified human body. The coffin and its occupant are believed to have belonged to the King of Poland and to have been located in his palace at Warsaw. At the turn of the last century, Egyptologists dated the coffin to the end of the 21st dynasty (1070 BC–945 BC), and described the item as coming from Thebes, belonging to Hori, priest of Amun-Ra. However, no investigation was ever carried out on the human body associated with the coffin. Within the framework of the Lithuanian Mummy Project, the preserved human remains underwent computed tomographic investigation in order to reconstruct the biological profile of the subject and to determine the embalming method employed. This led to the identification of a young adult male. Additionally, the mummy shroud was stylistically assessed in order to determine the mummy’s chronology in Egyptian history. Interestingly, the body could be ascribed to the Roman period of Egypt (30 BC–395 AD) due to analogies with the burial shrouds of the Soter group. This indicates a reuse of the coffin at some point in history.
The Lithuanian Mummy Project: A Historical Introduction
Within the framework of the Lithuanian Mummy Project, a scientific investigation of the mummified human remains found in Lithuania, the authors of this paper attempted to gather as much information as possible in order to promote and expand the knowledge about the corpses held in the crypt of the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius. The data collected enabled the history of the church and its burials over the course of time to be reconstructed, providing an original and unique window into Lithuania’s past.
Egyptian Mummies and Coffins in the Collections of the Náprstek Museum
The aim of the paper is to give a comprehensive overview of the ancienit Egyptian adult mummies and their respective coffins (when preserved) in the collections of the Naprstek Museum, Prague. Collecting ancient Egyptian antiquities in general, and mummies in particular, has a long history in the Czech lands. The history of scientific interest in the topic reaches back to the mid-19th century. In the 1970s the first multidisciplinary research under the direction of Eugen Strouhal was carried out. Since 2009, a team of specialists from the Naprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures and the Diagnostic Centre Mediscan has carried out the second interdisciplinary research project on Egyptian mummies primarily kept in the collections of the National Museum – Naprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, where there are 10 mummified human bodies of adult individuals. The present paper precedes a planned monograph on the given topic.
Ancient Egyptians in Lithuania
Since 2011, ancient Egyptian mummified human remains from collections in Lithuania have been subjected to scientific analysis in an attempt to assess the lives and deaths of the individuals, and how their bodies were treated after death in order to achieve bodily preservation. In total, six mummies were studied using computed tomography to obtain the maximum amount of useful data in a non-invasive manner. This paper outlines the aims of the research, what has been done to date and the plans for future work on this corpus of material.
Paleoimaging of a modern mummy from Lithuania (circa 19th-20th century)
Anatomy Radiology a b s t r a c t An anthropogenic human mummy curated in the Museum of the History of Medicine, Vilnius University, was recently examined by means of computed tomography. Although the mummy lacked data regarding its specific context and historical information on its identity and chronology, the investigation focused on the embalming method adopted to preserve it. Some pathological alterations were also recorded. This research appears to suggest that this body was prepared for educational and/or scientific purposes rather than funerary purposes. Hence, the case could be categorized as a ''medical mummy'' prepared between the mid-19th and the mid-20th centuries.
MARAVELIA et al.-Mummies-BAR 1218, 2004
The Egyptian Collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens keeps most of its riches well hidden in the Museum's storerooms. Among those, we have managed to rediscover some Late Period and Ptolemaic coffins with their mummies. All these particular anthropoid sarcophagi have been published in the Hellenic language in a rather elementary and concise way (with some erroneous points) more than a century ago by Tasos Neroutsos in Ἀρ-χαιολογικὴ ἐφημερὶς (Athens 1884). The author was a medical doctor who lived in Alexandria. Since then the coffins have fallen into oblivion, have never been exhibited in the Museum's showrooms (except one), and nobody else since the late Neroutsos cared to study them accurately. Now after so many years that have elapsed, a new generation of well qualified Egyptologists, with the Museum's collaboration, are trying to bring into light —once again— these forgotten and more or less unknown finds. These objects have been discovered in Egypt and were donated to the Hellenic Government during the late 19 th century by wealthy patriots who lived in Egypt. The purpose of this article is to remind both the Egyptologists and Egyptophili the presence of these forgotten mummies and to present a complete and precise study of some of these sarcophagi, dating from the Ptolemaic Period. Five out of these ten anthropoid coffins and their hieroglyphic inscriptions are thoroughly examined and presented in this paper.
Polymatheia. Studi classici offerti a Mario Capasso, 2018
The issue of ethics in the display and sampling of human remains is becoming increasingly important in the Egyptian context. This paper follows the history of the Egyp-tian royal mummies from their discovery in the 19th century until today, focusing on how and where they were displayed and studied, and the changing views, political, religious, and social, amongst scholars and the public, that informed them.