{"id":56,"date":"2020-04-13T14:02:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T14:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/?page_id=56"},"modified":"2020-10-23T13:17:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T13:17:45","slug":"mummy-bones-egypt","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/the-reeve-bequest\/1889-1890-grand-tour-of-the-eastern-mediterranean\/mummy-bones-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Mummy Bones &#8211; Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"536\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/the-reeve-bequest\/1889-1890-grand-tour-of-the-eastern-mediterranean\/mummy-bones-egypt\/2020-03-13-10-09-10-web\/\" class=\"wp-image-536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-1x1.jpg 1w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.09.10-web-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Mummy Bones from Reeve Expedition to Egypt<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"537\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/the-reeve-bequest\/1889-1890-grand-tour-of-the-eastern-mediterranean\/mummy-bones-egypt\/2020-03-13-10-08-23-web\/\" class=\"wp-image-537\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-1x1.jpg 1w, https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-03-13-10.08.23-web-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Canister with Reeve&#8217;s Handwritten Label<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Likely from Cairo, Saqqara, Beni-Hassan, or Dendera<\/li><li>Date acquired: 1890<\/li><li>BM# 1948.64.100<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>General Reeve acquired these mummy bones while on a trip through Egypt, Syria, and the Aegean Islands the winter of 1889-1890. Because he does not reference the bones in his published account of the trip, it is unclear how or where he obtained them. However, the canister lid lists them as being from Egypt, so it is certain that is their general point of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reeve\u2019s visit to Egypt was a part of a larger \u201cwinter trip abroad,\u201d the idea for which came about one night while dining with friends (Reeve, 1). After three months\u2019 preparation, eleven people (including Reeve and his wife) set out for New York to begin their \u201cflying trip through Egypt, Syria, and the Aegean Islands\u201d\u2014the tag-line for <em>How We Went and What We Saw<\/em>, Reeve\u2019s travelogue published shortly after their return to Minneapolis. The party made an initial six-day trip to Cairo to climb the pyramids and followed this by going up the Nile to Saqqara, Beni-Hassan, and Dendera. They then made their way to the ruins of Thebes, temples of Karnak and Luxor, the Temple of Edfu, and the Philae Temple Complex before returning to Cairo for another six-days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The group\u2019s excursions along the Nile were coordinated by Thomas Cook &amp; Son through their line of first-class steamers, the passengers\u2019 itinerary laid out for them at the start of each day (Reeve). It becomes difficult to pinpoint where, or from whom, Reeve acquired the bones as he makes mention that \u201ceach locality, as a rule, offered some specialty which we were importuned to buy\u201d (Reeve, 92). While in Beni-Hassan, Reeve remarks that \u201chere it was mummy cats\u2026they were really quite curious, but crude, and did not improve on closer inspection, while they smelled to heaven\u201d (Reeve, 92). It becomes more difficult as Reeve describes multiple trips to various bazaars that may have had bone fragments for sale, as well as \u201cgangs of curiosity venders [whose prices were] the same whether the article was genuine or bogus\u201d (Reeve, 106). Per <em>How We Went<\/em>, he did manage to obtain an \u201cunbroken roll of papyrus\u201d prior to departing Luxor, but there is no direct reference to his purchase or procurement of the mummy bones (Reeve, 126). Their trip continued on to \u201cBeyrout\u201d [Beirut] on February 17<sup>th<\/sup>, 1890 (Reeve, 162).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Western fascination with mummies has had a long history going back to renaissance and even medieval times, though they were referred to not as objects but as a material, <em>mummie<\/em> (Moshenka). <em>Mummie <\/em>is thought to derive from the Latin word <em>mumia<\/em>, which is further borrowed from the Arabic <em>m\u016bmiyah<\/em> (Veiga, 1). <em>M\u016bmiyah <\/em>is also the word for bitumen<em>, <\/em>a highly valued medicine in early modern Persia (11<sup>th<\/sup> century CE) that cured \u201ca bewildering variety of ailments\u201d (Moshenka, 455). Thereafter, the search for bitumen drove the creation of an \u201cillicit international market\u201d for mummies, as it was believed that they contained the valuable <em>m\u016bmiyah <\/em>(also <em>mummia<\/em>\u00ad\u00ad), and by the 16<sup>th<\/sup> and 17<sup>th<\/sup> centuries they had become a common additive in European pharmaceuticals (Moshenka, 455). \u201cMummy brown\u201d was also a popular pigment for paints, but it fell mostly out of fashion because of its \u201cresinous finish, which tended to crack over time\u201d (Moshenka, 455). This commercialization reduced the number of true mummies available for study when British archaeologists came in force after the successful translation of the Rosetta Stone in 1822, making genuine mummies a rare find (Moshenka).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An Ancient Egyptian\u2019s socio-economic class determined what kind of burial they had, and mummification was costly (Wente). Considering the dryness and whiteness of Reeve\u2019s five or so pieces, it is likely he either found the pieces in or around the various tombs and temples he visited or purchased them from a merchant after they had been cleaned to be sold. This would imply that the bones were from an Egyptian of a lower class whose grave may have not been very deeply dug, or who could not afford a complete mummification and so skeletonized. There is also the possibility that his bones are not genuine, since he more likely purchased them, but that is difficult to verify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Reeve does not provide a specific locale on the canister lid or reference his acquiring the bones, it is very difficult to do much more than speculate as to which site the <em>Mohammed Ali<\/em>, the Thomas Cook &amp; Son steamer, laid anchor presented him with the opportunity (Reeve). In light of this, four likely locations have been provided, with their respective coordinates, in the identifying information above. Though this is pure speculation, considered appropriate given the circumstances, it is possible Reeve\u2019s canister contains mummified cat bones from Beni-Hassan, but this is unlikely given his distaste for them as previously described. However, it is curious that Reeve would not have then distinguished his bones as being assuredly human, given his encounter with mummified animals. Most likely, Reeve operated under the assumption that the people he was placing the canister into the care of (i.e., Rollins College) would have merely assumed he meant human bones, and therefore did not bother to specify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spurred by the British craze for all things ancient Egyptian, known as Egyptomania, Americans developed their own interest in the culture (Stevenson). American museums saw the opportunity to establish themselves as equals to their British counterparts and entered into a partnership with them that ensured they would receive a portion of Britain\u2019s discoveries and artifacts (Stevenson). Soon enough, though, the partnership became a competition, with a high demand for artifacts on either side as Egyptomania spread to the mid-nineteenth century American public (Stevenson). No artifact was more sought after, however, than mummies. This widespread fascination was due in large part to British Egyptologists\u2019 public and private ticketed demonstrations of the unrolling of mummies from their wrappings, a practice popularized by Thomas \u201cMummy\u201d Pettigrew (1791-1865) beginning in the early 1830s (Moshenka).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pettigrew undertook these unwrappings for the sake of research and to educate both himself and his wider audience, which included anyone from other Egyptologists to foreign princes (Moshenka). These unwrappings were so popular that there is even record of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London being turned away because they had arrived late and lost their seats (Moshenka). Pettigrew would open each demonstration with a lecture on the relevant Egyptian history and the process of mummification before unrolling that day\u2019s mummy layer-by-layer and passing the strips to the audience to be \u201ctouched, smelt, and tasted\u201d (Moshenka, 454). Pettigrew published <em>History of Egyptian Mummies <\/em>(abbreviated title) in 1834 detailing what he learned, and it is still considered to be \u201cthe foundation of modern mummy studies\u201d (Moshenka, 467).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the midst of this craze, the Western tourism industry in Egypt boomed, facilitating public travel to the pyramids and other significant archeological sites (Hunter). Reeve even makes use of Thomas Cook &amp; Son, the leaders in Egyptian tourism and hospitality, to plan his own trip, thereby showing its prevalence (Reeve, 3). It became common practice for tourists to trek up and down the Nile to experience the ruins firsthand, so much so that guidebooks and travelers\u2019 accounts became hot commodities (Kalfatovic). An especially popular one was Alice Edwards\u2019s <em>A Thousand Miles Up the Nile<\/em> which happened to be published the same year as Reeve\u2019s own <em>How We Went and What We Saw<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Further Reading<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bard, Kathryn A. 2015.&nbsp;<em>An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt<\/em>. New York, NY: John Wiley &amp; Sons. <a href=\"http:\/\/nbn-resolving.de\/urn:nbn:de:101:1-201502266278\">http:\/\/nbn-resolving.de\/urn:nbn:de:101:1-201502266278<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>British Museum. 2017. \u201cEverything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Rosetta Stone.\u201d The British Museum Blog. <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.britishmuseum.org\/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-rosetta-stone\/\">https:\/\/blog.britishmuseum.org\/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-rosetta-stone\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edwards, Amelia B.\u00a01890. <em>A Thousand Miles Up the Nile<\/em>\u00a0(version digitized by Google). London, 1890: George Rutland and Sons.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/A_Thousand_Miles_Up_the_Nile\/T9mqZc9XYSQC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1\">https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/A_Thousand_Miles_Up_the_Nile\/T9mqZc9XYSQC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hunter, F Robert. 2004. \u201cTourism and Empire: The Thomas Cook &amp; Son Enterprise on the Nile,\u00a01868\u20131914.\u201d\u00a0<em>Middle Eastern Studies<\/em>\u00a040, no. 5: 28\u201354.  \u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0026320042000265666\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0026320042000265666<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kalfatovic, Martin R. 1992.\u00a0<em>Nile Notes of a Howadji: A Bibliography of Travelers&#8217; Tales from\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Egypt, from the Earliest Time to 1918\u00a0<\/em>(version digitized by The Internet Archive).\u00a0\u00a0Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/library.si.edu\/digital-library\/book\/nilenotesofhowad00kalf\">https:\/\/library.si.edu\/digital-library\/book\/nilenotesofhowad00kalf<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moshenka, Gabriel. 2014. &#8220;Unrolling Egyptian Mummies in Nineteenth-century Britain.&#8221;\u00a0<em>The British Journal for the History of Science<\/em>\u00a047, no. 3: 451-77.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/43820513\">www.jstor.org\/stable\/43820513<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rare Historical Photos. 2016.\u201cStreet Vendor Selling Mummies in Egypt, 1865.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/rarehistoricalphotos.com\/egyptian-mummy-seller-1865\/\">https:\/\/rarehistoricalphotos.com\/egyptian-mummy-seller-1865\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reeve, Charles McCormick.\u00a01891. <em>How We Went and What We Saw: A Flying Trip through\u00a0Egypt, Syria, and the Aegean Islands\u00a0<\/em>(version digitized by Google). New York, NY: The Knickerbocker Press.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/books\/reader?id=XAZBAAAAYAAJ%5d&amp;hl=en&amp;pg=GBS.PP1\">https:\/\/play.google.com\/books\/reader?id=XAZBAAAAYAAJ]&amp;hl=en&amp;pg=GBS.PP1<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stevenson, Alice. 2019. &#8220;Collecting in America\u2019s Progressive and Gilded Eras (1880\u20131919).&#8221;\u00a0 In\u00a0<em>Scattered Finds: Archaeology, Egyptology and Museums<\/em>, 69-104. London: UCL Press.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctv550cxt.6\">www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctv550cxt.6<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Veiga, Paula. 2012. &#8220;Studying Mummies and Human Remains: Some Current Developments and\u00a0Issues.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences<\/em>\u00a098, no. 2: 1-21.\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24536526\">www.jstor.org\/stable\/24536526<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wente, Edward F. \u201cFunerary Beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians: An Interpretation of the Burials\u00a0and the Texts.\u201d\u00a0<em>Expedition<\/em>, 1982, 17\u201328.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Likely from Cairo, Saqqara, Beni-Hassan, or Dendera Date acquired: 1890 BM# 1948.64.100 General Reeve acquired these mummy bones while on a trip through Egypt, Syria, and the Aegean Islands the winter of 1889-1890. Because he does not reference the bones in his published account of the trip, it is unclear how or where he obtained [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":422,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width.php","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-56","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/56\/revisions\/540"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/bakermuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}