It was the ancient Egyptians’ belief they would live forever, and now that belief is fulfilled for one man at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum.
The museum is in the midst of celebrating 51 years of having a mummy from the Ptolemaic period, which lasted from 323 BC to 30 BC, on permanent display.
Museum curator Elizabeth Weinstein said it’s arguably the most popular attraction at the museum and has been throughout its history there.
The mummy was brought to the museum in 1964 and has remained a fixture ever since. After extensive research, confirms the mummy is male, about 124 to 132 pounds, between 5-feet-7 inches and 5-feet-8 inches tall and was around 25 to 30 years old at the time of death. In the ’80s, after doing CT scans and other research, the mummy was thought to be a female Egyptian priestess. However, with new technology, more recent scans prove the mummy to be male.
The reason for the confusion about the mummy’s gender is the way his hands are positioned. His hands are crossed over his pelvis, and in the ’80s, the CT scan technology couldn’t oversee that. After the ’80s, more extensive research was done with better technology.
“We partnered with Mary Manhein at the LSU FACES Lab and an Egyptologist with the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium near Philadelphia, and we learned a great deal about our mummy,” Weinstein said.
The museum learned the mummy was naturally mummified in the sand and then given a traditional burial.
The research also confirmed the mummy has about seven broken ribs, which were broken at or near the time of death. Weinstein said she imagines this is most likely what killed him.
This particular mummy also has unusual features, such as hair and an open mouth.
“Mummies don’t have hair, that’s the most distinguishing feature about our mummy,” Weinstein said. “The reason they don’t have hair is that the natron salts naturally dry out the hair follicles and the hair falls out.”
Not only does the mummy have hair, but it also is preserved in its entirety, in small brown ringlets. Weinstein said the Egyptologist who oversaw the new CT scans believes he may have had dreadlocks.
Weinstein said the only mummies who have hair are royal mummies, as ancient Egyptians went through a great deal of effort at the time of mummification to treat the hair so it wouldn’t fall out.
However, Weinstein insists the mummy wasn’t royal, making the fact he has hair even more unusual.
Weinstein said his open mouth could be because of the agony of his death. She said it was also sometimes customary for Egyptians to do an opening of the mouth ceremony right before they entombed them, in which they ritually gave them food and drink to prepare them for their journey to the afterlife.
Research also confirmed the mummy to have been an extremely healthy resident of Thebes, Egypt.
“What we conjecture happened, was that this was a healthy young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Weinstein said.
There was civil unrest at that time in Thebes, so Weinstein said this individual may have gotten in the middle of a battle or skirmish. It’s also possible he was run over by a chariot, receiving some sort of crushing blow to the chest.
But he was left behind.
“He was left long enough for rigor mortis to set in, which we know because inside his bandages is a stretcher or brace of some sort that runs along his back,” Weinstein said. “Which means that when they found him, they wanted to be careful about moving him, so they used the brace.”
Weinstein said they did the best they could to wrap him and give him a professional, typical Egyptian burial.
Though the museum may never know his name, Weinstein said the purpose of doing such extensive research to find out about the mummy and his identity is to humanize him so people don’t think of him as an object, but a real person.
“It was his belief that he would have an eternal life and, in a sense, he is,” Weinstein said. “He’s not here, he’s not alive, but he’s a presence and his presence is still in our world.”
Operations manager at Louisiana Art and Science Museum Ashley Freeman said children have the hardest time grasping that the mummy was a human being and not just an object.
“Their reactions are really wide: Some of them are scared at first, some of them are really excited to see it,” Freeman said. “A lot of them don’t believe that it’s real.”
Freeman said the younger visitors are excited to see it, and they’re trying to understand and grasp the whole process of mummification, what a mummy means and what the cultural, religious process was to the ancient Egyptians.
“They see movies and cartoons, and they’ll ask if it comes alive,” Freeman said. “That’s the most fun part of giving the tour — bringing them into the tomb and getting their reactions and explaining the realities versus the myths and what they see on TV.”
Freeman said the ancient Egypt exhibit is one of the only ones in the Gulf Coast region, so it’s something different than what people are used to seeing and learning about. Because it’s so rare, Freeman said she tries her best to explain to both children and adults what the culture is all about.