Few, however,
seem to have truly appreciated the collection. Toronto entrepreneur
William Jamieson, a fan of Victorian museums who dresses like
Johnny Cash and collects shrunken heads, was one.
"I have an anthropologist
friend who lived nearby and never knew it was here," says
Jamieson, who purchased the contents of the museum - but not
the Daredevil stuff - from the younger Sherman and sold the
Egyptian material to the Carlos.
"Claude Zedetto,
principal of Battlefield Elementary School in Niagara Falls,
sometimes took pupils to see the mummies, but he does not
consider their removal a great loss.
"It wasn't a
regular stop for us", he explains. "There's so much to see
in Niagara Falls. Most people probably won't miss it."
The relative
anonymity of the mummies is puzzling. Even crammed in a room
with whalebones and samples of origami, the coffins and the
mummies work their magic. Just knowing they are thousands
of years old is exciting. Many of the coffin cases are quite
ornate, too.
"In 1000 B.C.,
all the painting that would have been done on the tomb walls
are on the coffins," explains Peter Lacovara, the Carlos Museum's
Egyptian art curator. "The pictures depict the burial ritual.
Here is a scene in which the gods are weighing the dead person's
heart against the feather of truth. If the heart is heavy
with sin, he won't be reborn".
"No one ever
flunks", he adds with his boyish grin.
In the style
of the period, the coffin exteriors feature carved hands and
feet. One is, poignantly, a baby's coffin. Inside, a painting
of the goddess Hathor, associated with motherhood, stretches
her arms to receive the child.
Even more poignant
is the tiny mummy of the baby. But all of the mummies are
fascinating. And creepy. Their faces have been unwrapped -
to make them more ghoulish, Lacovara opines - and their mouths
are open as part of the burial tradition to reanimate the
body and enable it to speak again. They look, however, like
they are frozen in immortal screams. You can see their hair.
One woman wears fashionable extensions. One man has a goatee.
You can even make out facial features. They still have skin,
now darkened by a charcoal colour.
Looking at them,
memories of every mummy horror movie floods into consciousness.
Could these pickled humans somehow come back to life, dripping
goo, like Imhotep in the current box-office hit, "The Mummy"?
It feels safer
to look at the little figures called shawabtis instead. Buried
along with the mummies, these Lilliputian male and female
statues, about 2 inches tall, were intended to be the mummified
individual's stand-ins if there was any work required in the
afterlife.
"There's even
a middle manager," Lacovara says, pointing to the figure with
the whip. "He's there to see that the work gets done".
The clay objects,
limestone canopic jars, used to hold the body organs, and
even the baskets have survived the centuries pretty well,
but the mummies are frail and some of the wooden coffins not
in good shape.
"The coffins
were not that well-build to begin with", explains Lacovara.
" I think they stay together from force of habit".
Coffins were
stock objects, decorated with the name left blank and filled
in when needed. They could also be customized, like cars,
Lacovara explains. The elaborately decorated coffin of a priestess
was definitely "a Mercedes-Benz", he says.
Aside from the
vicissitudes of age, these artifacts have suffered from extremes
of cold and heat, the sun pouring in the windows, years of
dust. When O'Gorman dabs a cotton swab on one of the coffins,
it blackens with grime. Once coffin had obviously taken a
nasty fall. Lacovara guesses that it might have happened during
transport from one museum building to another. Another's carved
feet wiggle like a loose tooth.
Carlos director
Anthony Hirschel says the artifacts are less needy than originally
though. "We found overall that the condition was extraordinarily
good considering age and current conditions", he says. "That
doesn't mean there isn't a lot to do. But the most important
ones are in quite beautiful shape".
Even so, he
estimates it will take at least two years to complete the
conservation - and that is on the fast track. "We are on a
relatively accelerated schedule because we are conscious that
people are anxious to see these things'", Hirschel says.
Meanwhile O'Gorman
and Ron Harvey, a free-lance conservator from Maine, are performing
triage - basic repairs to prevent further damage during the
trip home. Clad in purple plastic gloves, lab coats and masks
- no telling what mummy bacteria still reside inside - they
lay the coffins on tables under bright lights and gently press
them to locate where the gesso is pulling away from the wood;
gesso is the plaster mixed with binding material that is used
as a ground on which to paint. Using paintbrushes and special
adhesive compounds, they try to prevent more paint from flaking
off.
Some of the
coffins are marked with tiny pinholes.
"Beetles", explains
Ron Harvey. "Mummies are like beef jerky, a source of protein
that attracts bugs".
The brightness
of the paintings on the coffin interiors contrasts with the
muted exterior, showing how much more brilliant the colours
were when originally painted. The varnish has yellowed. If
it is original, it won't be replaced - in keeping with the
current conservation practice, which is to intervene as little
as possible.
"The worst sin
is to over-restore", O'Gorman explains. "We'll clean them
and paint only where blank spaces would spoil the visual effect
or where it would help conservation".
The Emory staff
has ordered customized crates for shipping each of the large
objects to Atlanta. After much discussion, Emory staffer Stephen
Bodnar does some ad-hoc problem solving and carpentry, building
special braces and strapping to keep the pieces snug in their
cases. Cotton batting cradles the mummies for the journey
in the moving van.
Nine days later
in Atlanta, the moment of truth arrives. The crates are opened;
a few coffins slide out and are examined. O'Gorman pronounces
them unscathed. Soon they will be ensconced on newly acquired
shelving, a sort of coffin bunk room/mummy mortuary. Then
the task of conservation will start, which will ensure that
the mummies, coffins and other objects have a long afterlife
at the Carlos.
"Given the conditions
at the Niagara Falls Museum", Hirschel says, "we have done
a good thing for Egyptian art and the individuals whose coffins
we brought here".
