Online Mummy resources

For more information on Ancient Egypt try some of these websites, which include some fun interactive games:

Manchester Children's Museum: Ancient Egypt

British Museum: Ancient Egypt

National Museum of Scotland:
Egyptian tomb adventure

National Museum of Scotland:
The Three Pyramids

Magic Lesson: Ancient Egypt

Egyptomania in Perth

The Egyptian collection of Perth Museum reflect the collecting of all things Egyptian, known as 'Egyptomania', that was hugely popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The bulk of the Perth collection was acquired in this way, by antiquarian and amateur collectors who sent or brought back items from Egypt.
Some appear to have been acquired first hand from excavations in the Valley of the Kings, Thebes, for example, whilst others were acquired second-hand via dealers in Cairo.

The star of Perth Museum's collection is the mummy, which was transferred from the Alloa Society of Natural History and Archaeology in 1936. Like the mummified hands and the mummified Ibis shown here it was recently analysed in Manchester by a team of Egyptologists and radiologists from the University and the Children's Hospital. This data was gathered as part of a UK-wide project to assemble a research database of human and animal mummy samples, CT scans and x-rays.

The exciting results of the mummy examination revealed that she had been badly damaged after mummification - possibly part of a tomb-robbing episode - that she had a name, Takerheb and that she probably came from a town on the east bank of the Nile called Akhmim. With public support Perth Museum would like to raise the funds to enable the conservation and display of the mummy, including a full facial reconstruction to give us a sense of what she might have looked like in life.

Mummiefied Hand

Once robbed from a tomb some mummies were cut up and the pieces sold or otherwise traded into the antiquities market.
This example comes from a tomb in Saqqara and has a protective amulet exposed within the layers of bandage. The hand has been separated at the metacarpal/wrist joint. Radiography confirmed preservation of soft tissues, ligaments and muscles overlying the bone.

Mummified Ibis

Ancient Egyptians believed animals and birds could also go into the afterlife. This had two aspects. One was the desire to play with pets in the afterlife, which meant cats and dogs were mummified alongside their owners. The other was the practice of animal cults in which the spirit of a particular deity was believed to reside in an animal. When the animal died it was mummified and a new live animal selected. Huge numbers of animal mummies have been found, including millions of ibises at Saqqara alone, so many that it is possible that the Egyptians bred them specifically as offerings and that they were kept in sacred colonies.
This example is presented as an ibis. Birds were sometimes kept as pets but the ibis was believed to represent the god Thoth. Radiography of this bundle revealed no material in good enough condition to confirm the ibis identification proclaimed on the wrapping. There are lots of small bones and feather elements combined with mud suggesting that this was a using up of left over bits from other mummifications. It was clearly re-packaged in the mid-nineteenth century to appeal to collectors and tourists. It may have been found at Saqqara. It was donated by Dr Henderson.

All-seeing eye amulet

One of the most widely worn protective amulets was the wedjat eye: the restored eye of Horus. It was worn by the living, and often appeared on rings and as an element of necklaces. It was also placed on the body of the deceased during the mummification process to protect the incision through which the internal organs were removed. This example dates to around 700 BC and is made of faience, a special type of blue-green ceramic.

Hare amulet

The ancient Egyptians associated the hare with alertness and watchfulness and so with the protective goddess Wienut. Hare amulets were made of made of many materials including gold and ivory. This example is made of porcelain. Hare amulets were worn to give their wearers swiftness and alertness so as to escape all dangers. They also worked as fertility charms.

Scarab beetle amulets

The scarab beetle was an important amulet type from around 2,600BC onwards. The real beetle lays its eggs in dung and then pushes the ball of dung before it wherever it goes. When the young beetles hatch they appear to do so miraculously from the dung. Thus to the ancient Egyptians the scarab beetle was a symbol of rebirth and represents the god Khepri, who was thought to push the sun disc through the morning sky, as a scarab beetle pushes its ball of dung.
Initially scarab amulets were used as protective seals in life and later their use was extended to funerary rites. The heart scarab was placed over the heart of the mummy to prevent the heart from speaking out against the deceased.
Amulets were worn by the living and the dead in ancient Egypt. Some protected the wearer from danger and others gave the wearer special attributes such as strength. They were generally made in the shape of animals, plants, sacred objects or hieroglyphic symbols. Different combinations of shape, material and colour determined the effectiveness of a particular amulet

Wall fragment with inscription

The more elaborate tombs in which the mummies and their grave good were placed were often richly decorated. This fragment of decorated walling comes from a tomb in Thebes .The hieroglyphic inscription is so partial that it cannot be meaningfully translated. The white background was common for tomb decoration around 1500-1000 BC.

Ushabtis

Small funerary figures that could be made of wood, stone, ceramic or faience. They were produced in huge numbers and along with scarabs are the most numerous of surviving ancient Egyptian antiquities. Their purpose was to be a substitute for the deceased in the event of the deceased being required to do manual labour in the afterlife. Often they carry an agricultural hoe and a basket. They were generally placed in the tomb amongst the grave goods - sometimes covering the floor around a sarcophagus - but were sometimes wrapped in the bandages of a mummy.

Canopic Jars

Were usually made of stone or ceramic and were used to preserve the mummy’s internal organs for the afterlife. They came in sets of four, one each for the stomach, the intestines, the lungs and the liver. As the seat of the soul the heart was left inside the mummified body. The lids could be either plain or shaped like the face of the deceased, the head of Anubis or the four sons of Horus. A variant myth tells that the brother were the sons of Osiris and born from a lily flower that rose from the first ocean.

This group comprises two lids each of Imseti and Daumutef and a third lid of Imseti, on the jar. The human-headed Imseti or Imset, was guardian of the liver and was himself protected by Isis. He is the only one of the sons of Horus shown as a human. His name may mean ‘he who smoothes or pleases’. The inscribed jar is a 19th century fake, made as a collector’s piece to go with the genuine lid.

Duamutef lid

This painted pottery lid depicts Horus’s jackal-headed son Duamutef, protector of the stomach and protected by the goddess Neith.