Achieving Divinity: “Golden Mummies of Egypt” at Manchester Museum
March 2023 | Vol. 11.3
By Campbell Price
An international touring exhibition “Golden Mummies of Egypt”, consisting of 107 objects from Manchester Museum, has recently returned to Manchester and presents a unique opportunity to display and discuss our unique collection of funerary objects dating to the Graeco-Roman Period (ca. 300 BCE – 200 CE). These chiefly come from the excavations at the site of Hawara, near the Faiyum lake, led by the British archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942). He was able to excavate the items during his seasons in 1888–90 and 1911 there financed by Manchester cotton magnate Jesse Haworth, and export them thanks to the “finds division” system of the time.
Naturally, an exhibition which features mummified remains prompts discussion about the ethics of their display. Debate on the subject is not new but has attended the display of Egyptian mummified people since at least the first Western encounters with them in the 17th Century CE.
Map showing Edom and surrounding areas (A. Witsell, after original by J.M. Tebes)
Unlike the previous venues for “Golden Mummies” in the US and China, we have decided to edit out all images of human remains derived from CT-scans and X-rays from the final Manchester showing. Digital interpretation now focuses solely on the outer decoration and materials used in the mummification ritual, one that was more about transformation of the deceased into a divine being than simply about preservation of the body. Modern Egyptologists still tend to value the most “lifelike” mummified bodies of certain pharaohs from the New Kingdom as “best”, with mummified bodies from the previous centuries being viewed as experiments and those from the following centuries as an inexorable decline in the art. This is a kind of social Darwinism that springs from the colonial need for typologies, leading to misapprehension of other cultures.
In contrast, “Golden Mummies of Egypt” resists the urge to look inside. While this may have been the default expectation of recent exhibitions featuring mummified human remains, it is one that was never anticipated by ancient people. Instead, the exhibition addresses the intention rather than the effect of the ritual of mummification and focuses on the transformative imagery found on the decorated exterior of carefully wrapped bodies.
Carving from probably a coffin or funerary bier of Osiris and Isis, Roman Period, no. 11254. © Manchester Museum.
From the earliest identifiable depictions of gods, the wrapped, shrouded form has indicated (and imparted) divine status. Usually, Egyptology describes gods like Osiris and Ptah as “mummiform”, when in fact the shrouded forms of mummified bodies imitate images of gods. These amorphous forms subsume individual human characteristics and create a divine, ancestral image — an effigy for eternity.
Gilded funerary mask from Lahun, ca 1st century BCE – 1st century CE. No. 2120. © Manchester Museum.
Research that enquires into preservation techniques and palaeopathology — the study of ancient disease — has long fascinated people. But by narrowing in on the medical history of mummified individuals, this interpretation characterizes the dead individual in terms of their illnesses, the identification of which is much more contested and subjective than many non-specialists realize.
When understood as transformation of a human body into a divine image, mummification actively denies these human frailties. Texts and images repeatedly assert that the (elite) dead have become something more than human, impervious to change, divine and therefore without imperfections. This generically god-like, and mostly androgenous, face is what appears in countless plaster-and-linen masks; these were mass-produced and subsume individual identity into a standardized — even hieroglyphic — vision of an eternal face or “head of mystery”, to quote from spell 151 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Panel portrait for the mummified remains of a man,ca. 2ndcent. CE, Hawara. No. 11306. © Manchester Museum
The “Faiyum Portrait” panels are often held up as if, by contrast, they are snapshots of reality — a definitive break from the supposedly stiff and caricatured form of Pharaonic-style mask. Yet if — as seems likely — most panels were painted posthumously, then these “portraits” are no simple reflections of what people looked like in life. At best, they are highly stylized approximations — similar to, for example, contemporary limestone commemorative busts from elite tombs at Palmyra in Syria. Much as we might want these painted faces to be “the way people actually looked”, they are constructed, idealized images. The hairstyles in these images often reference that of the reigning Roman Emperor, and this is often used to date these images. Since emperors were themselves deified, providing a further divine model to imitate. These lifelike images are, therefore, no less ”godly” than the Pharaonic-style masks.
(Left): Limestone bust of a man from Palmyra, ca. 2nd cent. CE. No. 42031. © Manchester Museum.
(Right): Limestone bust of a woman from Palmyra, ca. 2nd cent. CE. No. 42032. © Manchester Museum.
Unlike in Pharaonic times, there is evidence that wrapped bodies with panel paintings and masks were placed on selective display for a period of time perhaps up to several years after funeral rituals. Although Flinders Petrie assumed this to be in a domestic context, dedicated sacred spaces seem more likely. This kind of direct interaction with the dead — present as ancestors — is common in many cultures, although we are often unfamiliar with such practices in the West.
It is hoped that the exhibition and an accompanying book will prompt visitors to rethink some widely-known assumptions about the Egyptian afterlife.
Dr. Campbell Price is Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum. He curated the exhibition “Golden Mummies of Egypt” and authored an accompanying book, available for international shipping here. He is @EgyptMcr on social media.
How to cite this article
Price, C. 2023. “Achieving Divinity: ‘Golden Mummies of Egypt’ at Manchester Museum.” The Ancient Near East Today 11.3. Accessed at: https://anetoday.org/price-divinity-mummies/.
Want to learn more?
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Is it Ethical to Continue Excavating the Dead in the Ancient Near East?
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