If all mummies were covered like a recently discovered one, mummy movies would probably be less scary … but perhaps a little kinky. CT scans of a mummified adult from Egypt, now in the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney showed the body to be covered in a mud shell or carapace, a mortuary treatment not previously documented in Egypt. Would a movie with wrestling mud mummies be classified as horror … or porn?
“The mummified body was acquired by Sir Charles Nicholson during his trip to Egypt in 1856–1857. Little is known about its acquisition, as is sadly the case for many human bodies procured in Egypt by European and American collectors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The mummified body, the lidded coffin in which it rested and its mummy board originated in Western Thebes and was likely purchased in Luxor. The ensemble was donated to the University of Sydney by Nicholson in 1860.”
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IMAGE: Mummified individual and coffin in the Nicholson Collection of the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney. A. Mummified individual, encased in a modern sleeve for conservation, NMR.27.3. B. Coffin. view more
Credit: Sowada et al, PLOS ONE (CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
New analysis of a 20th Dynasty mummified individual reveals her rare mud carapace, according to a study published February 3, 2021 in the open-access journal
PLOS ONE by Karin Sowada from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues.
Studies of mummified bodies from the late New Kingdom to the 21st Dynasty (c. 1294-945 BC) have occasionally reported a hard resinous shell protecting the body within its wrappings, especially for royal mummies of the period. Here, Sowada and colleagues describe their discovery of a rare painted mud carapace enclosing an adult mummy in Sydney s Chau Chak Wing Museum.
New analysis of a more than 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy has revealed a rare mud carapace (shell), a study suggests.
Studies of mummified bodies from the late New Kingdom to the 21st Dynasty (around 1294-945 BC) have occasionally reported a hard resinous shell protecting the body within its wrappings.
This is especially the case for royal mummies of the period.
Researchers have now described the discovery of a rare painted mud carapace enclosing an adult mummy in Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney, Australia.
In addition to its practical restorative purpose, the authors suggest the mud carapace gave those who cared for the deceased the chance to emulate elite funerary practices of coating the body in an expensive imported resin shell with cheaper, locally available materials.
In a potentially ancient case of mistaken identity, a new study reveals that an Egyptian mummy likely wasn t the person named on the front of its coffin.
Aussie scientists performed computerised tomography (CT) scans and radiocarbon dating on the mummy and coffin, currently housed at the University of Sydney.
The mummified female body dates as far back as the year 1200 BC, while the coffin in which the mummy resides was constructed in the year 1000 BC, they found.
The body may have been inserted by a crafty Egyptian dealer into what was at the time an empty coffin at some point during the 19th century, just before it was bought for the university.