Chicago: "Inside
Ancient Egypt," the permanent exhibit of The Field Museum,
houses
quite a few mummies, including about twenty human mummies, many animal
mummies, and (oh, yes) a wrapped hand. The exhibit is displayed
in a reconstruction of the Egyptian tomb of Unis-ankh. On your way in,
visitors pass by the accidental Egyptian mummy of a 50-year-old woman.
She was mummified over 5500 years ago, when she was buried in the sand
and her bodily fluids dried out from the heat of the sun.
The
Oriental Institute in
Chicago also displays many mummies in its newly remodeled Egyptian
exhibit, including these:
-
a
boy's mummy about 2,000 years old (from the Roman period), one of
the first mummies acquired by the Institute. Bought by
anthropologist James Henry Breasted and his wife on their Egyptian
honeymoon in 1893, they kept it under their berth (along with
three other mummies) on the voyage home.
-
Meresamun,
a 30-year-old woman who was a member of the choir that sang in the
Temple of Amun. X-rays have revealed that she once had a broken
jaw and a broken left arm, both long healed before she died of
unknown causes.
-
Petrosiris,
a mostly toothless old man who died about 2500 years ago. "He
must have been in agony when he died...with only two teeth left
and huge abscesses on his jaw," said Emily Teeter, museum
curator.
-
mummified
animals, including an ibis, baby crocodile, and a shrew.
Just as
exciting are a number of objects, many of them
from King Tut's tomb. These include the dishes used for King Tut's
funeral banquet in 1323 B.C. Unlike the other lavish treasures
discovered in his tomb, these simple plates and bowls are made from
red clay and rustically shaped. A few even have hieroglyphs indicating
the food to be placed on the plate (such as "four cakes of
wheat" and "seven grapes").
Other
important objects used in making Tut's mummy (knives, bags of natron
crystals, and other tools) are displayed as well.
