New Life for the Atlanta's Emory University
unveils a unique collection of
Egyptian mummies and decorated coffins.
(Page 2)

CONSERVINGTHE COLLECTION
With the acquisition of the collection came the responsibility to conserve the objects properly, and this amounted to a nearly $2-million undertaking. After being subjected to the extremes of Canada's climate for more than a century, many of the coffins and mummies had suffered considerable damage. Everything had to be carefully cleaned to remove the century-old layers of caked-on dirt and grime without harming the painted surfaces.

In the case of Iawttayesheret, a lady-in-waiting to the Nubian princesses who resided in Thebes during the 25th Dynasty, it was also necessary to undo a badly botched nineteenth-century restoration of the eyes. Her image on both inner and outer coffins had originally been fitted with eyes made from either alabaster or limestone with glass or painted pupils. The eyebrows and lids were cast from bronze. The original eyes had been removed-probably stolen in antiquity - leaving bare wood eye sockets. In the late nineteenth century, the eyes were poorly and inaccurately restored with plaster. These restorations appeared much larger than the original eyes would have been, and their layer of varnish had yellowed significantly with the passing years. Fortunately, the nineteenth-century eyes were easily removed. Conservators fashioned new ones that more closely resembled those that had been created for these coffins in antiquity based on surviving ancient examples, using stable twentieth-century restoration materials to avoid any confusion for future scholars and conservators.

A LOST PHARAOH? Perhaps the most intriguing mummy in the collection was an unwrapped body without a coffin. Arne Eggebrecht of the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany, was the first scholar to suggest it may be Ramesses I, the founder of the famous line that included Seti I, Ramesses II and his 50 sons, Queen Nofretari, and Ramesses III. This mummy will be the focus of a special exhibition entitled "Science, Scholarship and the Lost Pharaoh," opening in the spring of 2003. The body is extremely well preserved. The man was probably over 45 years of age at his death and his arms are crossed over his chest, right over left, as is typical for royal mummies. The left hand was placed as though it had originally grasped an object, possibly a scepter. He also received the "royal treatment" in his careful and elaborate mummification, including the removal of the brain and internal organs. However, the heart, the seat of intelligence to the ancient Egyptians, had been left in place. Linen was placed into the back of the mouth and throat to restore their contours, which would have shrunk after the 40 days of dehydration during mummification. Five long, tightly rolled linen bundles were placed in the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. The phallus was separately wrapped, and the toes slightly splayed, indicating that they may have originally been placed in gold stalls.

If this is indeed a royal mummy, it might be one of those that had been sold out of the Deir el-Bahri cache before it was sequestered for the Cairo Museum. The cache had been discovered in Thebes in the mid-nineteenth century, when the Niagara Falls Museum was making its purchases. Whether this individual was indeed the founder of the 19th Dynasty (1292-I 190 B.C.) or not remained unprovable until now. Comparative Y-chromosome DNA analysis, now under way, will allow us to match the mummy of Ramesses' son Seti I, in the Cairo Museum, to this one and could prove the identity of the putative Ramesses I once and for all. If he does indeed turn out to be .the missing royal mummy, the Carlos Museum has already pledged that he will be returned to his rightful place in Egypt.

TAHAT AND TAASET
The most beautiful of the coffins belonged to the 21st Dynasty Lady Tanakhtenttahat, a chantress in the temple of the god Amun at Karnak. Such women were usually of high rank and served in temples not as priests, but as chantresses, or singers, who presumably played instruments and recited hymns to the gods. On the coffin lid, Tanakhtenttahat, also referred to by the shorter version of her name, Tahat, js show bedecked jn a full wig surrounded by protective gods and symbols and adorned with her finest jewelry. On the sides of the coffin are delicately painted mythological scenes and depictions of Tahat being judged in the underworld and being reborn into eternal life.

Tahat's coffin belongs to the Third Intermediate Period, ,a time when fine wood, such as cedar of Lebanon, was not being imported and local softwoods were substituted. Such coffins were often coated with a thick layer of mud to correct defects in the wood and model the features of the body that could not be carved in its soft, splintery surface. A thin ground of fine, white gesso or plaster was then laid over the mud to form a canvas for the painting. Occasionally, as on Tahat's coffin, scarabs and other sacred images were modeled in plaster to give them the threedimensional quality of actual jewels set into a coffin. After everything was painted, the whole surface was coated with a gleaming varnish to give it the appearance of gold.

Over the mummy was placed a coffin board, a device peculiar to the 2 1 st Dynasty, which looked like and served as a secondary lid with more decorative elements designed to protect the deceased. The mummy found in Tahat's coffin had been carefully wrapped, but when she was examined at Emory HospitaI, CT scans and X-ray images revealed that, against the custom of the period, her internal organs had not been removed. Why, in an era of elaborate mummification, this procedure was left undone was a mystery Closer inspection of the inscriptions revealed that the coffin had been re-used, and Taha& names had been partially erased and replaced with the name of a woman named Taaset. All over the coffin, older decoration and inscriptions had been covered up with new ones. Since Taaset could only afford a used coffin, it is no wonder that she didn't get a first-class mummification job. Such recycling seems to have been common in this period, from kings who re-used coffins and objects taken from the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings for their own burials to private people re-using coffins and tombs.

After their long journey, the coffins and mummies will be unveiled in new galleries opening on October 6. Emory's museum is fondly known by many Atlantans as the "Mummy Museum." With these new acquisitions, the Michael C. Carlos Museum is indeed worthy of the name.

PETER LACOVARA is curator of ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. SUE D'AURIA is assistant curator at the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia and an expert on mummification. THERBSE O'GORMAN is head of conservation at the Michael C. Carlos Museum.