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Mummy of an Egyptian Child of the Greco-Roman
Era, c. 50 bce-150 ce, associated cartonnage,
and x-rays of whole body and head.
by Gayle Gibson
This is the mummy of a child about thirty inches tall from the late Ptolemaic or early Roman period in Egypt. Although the mummified body appears very solid (possibly reinforced by a wooden structure inside the wrappings,) X-rays show that disintegration of the soft tissues has permitted some bones to shift from their natural positions. Though this shifting included the teeth, all twenty milk teeth appear to be present. There are no signs of permanent teeth forming in the jaws, which indicates an age under well seven. Over-all size and development of the long bones suggest the age of the child at death was closer to three.
The x-ray of the head reveals two small golden earrings. A third golden object, an amulet case or hair ornament, appears somewhat askew in or on top of the mouth. It's possible that this third object had been placed on the tongue. The earrings are formed of golden wire twisted into a circle. Two beads and a small oval , also of gold, appear at the clasp. The delicate, graceful earrings are of a type worn in life, not gold foil dummies made specifically for a burial. Because boys did not commonly wear earrings at this period, their presence suggests that the child was a little girl.
The linen wrappings are a mixture of fine and coarser weaves, with some finer strips used elegantly on the feet and face. The back of the mummy is darkened with resins or perfumes, which leaked through the cloth from the body. An additional source of this material was a thick, glossy layer of resin used as varnish on the painted linen pieces. this 'varnish' has darkened in many places where it was splashed onto the wrapping. Several small torn and missing pieces of cloth on the back suggest the mummy was laid onto a surface while the unguents were still liquid. Removal of the mummy from this surface (coffin? cartonnage?) resulted in the slight loss of material.
Three pieces of painted linen adorn the front of the mummy: a larger piece, approximately nine inches wide, across the child's trunk, and a thinner, vertical strip on each leg. The leg pieces appear to have been roughly cut from a long strip of cloth. The three pieces of thick woven linen are the same style and age. Painted cloth was sometimes used near the body as shroud in Roman times. An earlier tradition was to use pieces of decorated cartonnage to adorn and protect the mummy. In this case the cloth is used not as a shroud, nor quite in the way that the traditional cartonnage pieces had been used. This may have been a compromise made necessary by the unexpected death of the child, or the family's lack of funds.
The largest piece covers the trunk. In the upper register, two green canines face each other over a diamond-shaped red object. The dogs represent Anubis, the god of embalming who guaranteed the bodily integrity of the deceased. Their unnatural colour evokes the green of the living world, renewal, regeneration and rebirth. The red object represents (and physically overlays and protects) the heart of the child. The heart, seat of intelligence and memory as well as the emotions, was vital to survival in the next life, where it would be weighed against the feather of truth and justice in order to determine the deceased's fitness for immortality.
Under this scene is another in which the goddesses Isis and Nephthys, similarly green, raise their hands in a gesture of mourning on either side of a shrine. A cartoon-like image of a standing mummiform figure inside a red rectangle represents the dead child. The two goddesses who had protected their brother Osiris, and enabled him to live again in the Underworld, will perform the same offices for the deceased.
On the thighs, two pieces of painted linen substitute for the more usual cartonnage 'apron' which protected the genitals and often carried the name of the deceased. On the left, an amulet known as tyet or the Isis knot, promises a safe birth into the next life. Beneath it is another symbol which cannot be read because of the darkening of resinous material applied in antiquity over the surface of all the linen pieces. On the right thigh, a long green snake offers protection and regeneration. This snake may represent Isis, or a deity peculiar to the Greco-Roman world, Agathos Daimon - the good spirit. (This particular cult is not attested before the second century bce. It was very popular in Alexandria into the Roman period, where the creature appears on many tombs.)
This little child was carefully buried by those she left behind. The use of resins or perfumes, the inclusion of golden jewellery, the careful wrapping and the protective pieces of cartonnage still show the love and status of her parents and family.
1. X-ray opaque shadows close to the head may be resin-impregnated curls.
2. A similar amulet can be seen on the portrait of a young boy excavated at er-Rubayat in 1901, now in Dublin, NMI 1902.4, and another portrait of a boy in the J.P.Getty Museum 78.AP.262. This boy also wears an amulet or ornament in his 'Horus lock' of hair.
3. The Rosicrucian Museum in San Diego, California, has the mummy of a girl of about five years of age whose CT-scan revealed earrings and an amulet. Another mummified head with similar earrings was found at Hawara by Petrie in 1888. The young woman's head is now in the Petrie Museum, UC 28041. Similar earrings are also shown on the Portrait of a woman in tempera on wood from er-Rubayat, British Museum EA 63394, and a Painted Plaster cartonnage mask in the British Musem EA 29476.)
by Gayle Gibson
