Brooklyn Museum Examines Ancient Egyptian Mummies
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| Egyptian, Roman period (95-100 B.C.). Mummy of Demetrios. Painted cloth, gold, human remains, wood, encaustic and gilding. 34 x 39 x 190 cm (13.3 x 15.4 x 74.8 in.). Brooklyn Museum. |
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| Brooklyn Museum Conservators Assist with Demetrios Mummy CT Scan at North Shore University Hospital on July 25, 2007. Photograph © Adam Husted. |
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| Brooklyn Museum's Demetrios Mummy Undergoing a CT Scan at North Shore University Hospital. Photograph © Adam Husted. |
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| Egyptian, New Kingdom, Dynasty 19 (ca. 1291-1190 B.C.). Coffin of the Lady of the House Weretwahset, Reinscribed for Bensuipe Containing Face Mask and Openwork Body Covering. Wood, painted. 63 x 32.5 x 193.5 cm (24.8 x 12.8 x 76.2 in.). Brooklyn Museum. |
By STAN PARCHIN
February 1, 2010
To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt is a traveling special exhibition devoted to Egyptian funerary art, practices and beliefs. In preparation for the show, scholars at New York's Brooklyn Museum used modern scientific methods to analyze its collection of mummified remains. On July 5, 2007, conservators embarked upon an extensive study of five human and nearly 50 avian, feline and crocodile mummies. Experts from the Brooklyn Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute and the University of Bristol were led in their endeavor by Dr. Edward Bleiberg, Curator of Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern Art.
Studying Ancient Egyptian Mummies
Earlier generations of scholars studied ancient Egyptian mummies by means of autopsy. During the last two decades, scientists have increasingly utilized non-invasive techniques to determine, for example, the condition of the deceased's bones and approximate age at the time of death.
The Brooklyn Museum's international team of specialists employed state-of-the-art technologies in a thorough examination of its mummies. Carbon-14 (radiocarbon) testing yielded dates for when they were created. CT (Computed Tomography) scanning facilitated the conservators' studies. After reviewing the remains' numerous images, experts determined that the embalmers included ceremonial jewelry and other objects within the layers of linen that wrapped one corpse. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) helped to analyze the mummies' painted bandages and shrouds. GC Mass Spectroscopy revealed the chemicals used during mummification. And the comparison of test results from other mummies allowed Egyptologists to trace changes in the embalming process over the course of 3,000 years of Egyptian history.
CT scanning of mummies is a first for both the Brooklyn Museum and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, where the tests were conducted. The Mummy of Demetrios (95-100 A.D.) was the study's first human subject. Dr. Lawrence Boxt, Director of Cardiac MRIs and CT Scans at the Long Island medical facility, divulged to The New York Times (August 6, 2007) that the corpse was relatively intact, showing no signs of injury, malnutrition and degenerative disease.
To Live Forever...
The exhibition To Live Forever... explores how the ancient Egyptian rich and poor prepared for the afterlife and their beliefs about what they would encounter once there. The installation features clay and granite vessels, magical faience amulets, protective gold jewelry made for the elite and the painted Coffin of the Lady of the House Wentwahset (ca. 1292-1190 B.C.). Included is Demetrios' mummy and its portrait, both owned by the Brooklyn Museum and reunited since their 1911 discovery in a Roman cemetery by archaeologists in Hawara, Egypt.
Sources
Bleiberg, Edward and Kathlyn M. Cooney. To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum (exh. cat.). Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 2008.
Bryan, Betsy M. and Erik Hornung. The Quest for Immortality: Hidden Treasures of Egypt (exh. cat.). New York: Prestel Publishing, 2002.
D'Auria, Sue, Peter Lacovara and Catharine H. Roehrig. Mummies and Magic: The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt (exh. cat.). Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1992.
Taylor, John H. Mummies: Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt...Treasures from the British Museum (exh. cat.). Santa Ana: Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2005.
Walker, Susan (ed.), et al. Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt (exh. cat.). New York: Routledge Publishing, 2000, 23-25, 48-49.
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