AIC's 45th Annual Meeting

The Field Museum has one of the larger collections of Egyptian mummies in the United States. In 2011 and 2012, mummies which were not on display were CT scanned using a mobile medical CT scanner. The results prompted a temporary in-house exhibit on mummies, and then a traveling exhibit. In this paper we discuss the analysis and treatment of Egyptian mummies in preparation for the traveling exhibit, with particular focus on two mummies with coffins, both quite fragile: ‘Minirdis' (a Ptolemaic mummy in a re-used Late Period coffin), and ‘Pen-Ptah' (a Late Period mummy and coffin). The mummy of Minirdis was lying in its coffin. CT scans showed that it had suffered one or more longitudinal shocks which resulted in tearing of wrappings, separation of the legs and feet, tearing of the shroud, and severe tearing, distortion, and fragmentation of the decorative cartonnage panels. Visual examination showed that wooden elements of the coffin had separated and some elements were lost. In addition, the clay fills used to smooth the contours of the coffin prior to painting had swollen and were extremely friable. The mummy of Pen-Ptah was partially unwrapped, lying on a painted board inside its inner coffin. The head of the mummy was fully unwrapped and had detached from the mummy and was held in position by being adhered to the board. It was clear that the body had partially decomposed prior to mummification and what skin that remained on the skull was peeling away from the bone. In this paper we discuss the treatment and display of these two mummies and their coffins, combining as they do the ethical questions of restoration and respect for human remains and ancient religious practice, in the context of a deadline-driven exhibit preparation schedule. In particular, we look at the problems of stabilizing and restoring human remains, inverting large fragile, non-rigid objects for examination and treatment, stabilizing and restoring painted wooden coffins, reconstructing cartonnage, and using laser, computed tomography, and photogrammetric 3D imaging to document object condition and design and fabricate display and travel mounts for the treated objects.