Gebelein Predynastic Mummies
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The Gebelein predynastic mummies are six naturally mummified bodies, dating to approximately 3400 BC from the Late Predynastic period of Ancient Egypt. They were the first complete predynastic bodies to be discovered. The well-preserved bodies were excavated at the end of the nineteenth century by
Wallis Budge Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips ...
, the British Museum Keeper for Egyptology, from shallow sand graves near
Gebelein Gebelein (Egyptian Arabic: , Two Mountains; Egyptian: Inerty or Per-Hathor; Ancient Greek: or ; Latin: ''Pathyris'' or ''Aphroditopolis'') was a town in Egypt. It is located on the Nile, about 40 km south of Thebes, in the New Valley Go ...
(today,
Naga el-Gherira Gebelein (Egyptian Arabic: , Two Mountains; Egyptian: Inerty or Per-Hathor; Ancient Greek: or ; Latin: ''Pathyris'' or ''Aphroditopolis'') was a town in Egypt. It is located on the Nile, about 40 km south of Thebes, in the New Valley Gov ...
) in the Egyptian desert. Budge excavated all the bodies from the same grave site. Two were identified as male and one as female, with the others being of undetermined sex. The bodies were given to the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in 1900. Some grave-goods were documented at the time of excavation as "pots and flints", however they were not passed on to the British Museum and their whereabouts remain unknown. Three of the bodies were found with coverings of different types (reed matting, palm fibre and an animal skin), which still remain with the bodies. The bodies were found in foetal positions lying on their left sides. Since 1901, the first body excavated (EA 32751) has remained on display in the British Museum. This body was originally nicknamed Ginger due to his red hair; this nickname is no longer officially used as part of recent ethical policies for human remains.


Excavation

In 1895 and 1896 the ruins at Abydos,
Tukh Toukh ( ar, طوخ, ) is a city located in Qalyubia Governorate, Egypt. it is located on the Cairo-Alexandria agricultural road. Toukh is also a county that consists of many small towns. These towns include Tant al Gazirah and Bershoum. Toukh C ...
,
Hierakonpolis Nekhen ( egy, nḫn, ); in grc, Ἱεράκων πόλις Hierakonpolis ( either: City of the Hawk, or City of the Falcon, a reference to Horus or ''Hierakōn polis'' "Hawk City" in arz, الكوم الأحمر, el-Kōm el-Aḥmar, lit=the ...
and
Gebelein Gebelein (Egyptian Arabic: , Two Mountains; Egyptian: Inerty or Per-Hathor; Ancient Greek: or ; Latin: ''Pathyris'' or ''Aphroditopolis'') was a town in Egypt. It is located on the Nile, about 40 km south of Thebes, in the New Valley Go ...
were excavated. In 1892
Jacques de Morgan Jean-Jacques de Morgan (3 June 1857, Huisseau-sur-Cosson, Loir-et-Cher – 14 June 1924) was a French mining engineer, geologist, and archaeologist. He was the director of antiquities in Egypt during the 19th century, and excavated in Memph ...
, Director of Antiquities in Egypt, proved that pottery found at Abydos and Nakadah pre-dated the dynastic period, stimulating interest by many European Archaeologists. As each excavation was completed, local Egyptian residents would continue to search the sites for remains. In 1895 E. A. Wallis Budge, on behalf of the British Museum, procured inscribed coffins and funerary furniture from the
12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some ...
tombs at
Al-Barshah Deir El Bersha ( ar, دير البرشا; also written as Dayr al-Barsha, Deir el-Bersheh) is a Coptic village in Middle Egypt, in the Minya Governorate. It is located on the east bank of the Nile to the south of Antinoöpolis and almost opposi ...
by working with the Egyptian Service of Antiquities. Budge started purchasing predynastic finds from the locals including bowls, spear and arrow heads, carved flint and bone figures and partial human remains (described as chiefly bones without skin or flesh remaining). In 1896, Budge was approached by a resident of Gebelein who claimed to have found more mummies. Budge was taken to the bodies, and he immediately recognized them as from the predynastic period and the first complete pre-dynastic bodies identified. He began excavations and a total of six mummified bodies were removed from shallow sand graves at Baḥr Bila Mâ (''Waterless River'') located at the eastern slopes of the north-most hill at Gebelein. The only grave goods were a pot found with the female adult body and partial remains of wicker, fur and linen with the other bodies. In the predynastic period bodies were usually buried naked and sometimes loosely wrapped. In such a burial, when the body is covered in warm sand, the environmental conditions mean that most of the water in the body is quickly evaporated or drained away, meaning that the corpse is naturally dried and preserved. This method was widely used in the pre-dynastic Egyptian period, before artificial
mummification A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...
was developed. The natural mummification that occurred with these dry sand burials may have led to the original Egyptian belief in an after-death survival and started the tradition of leaving food and implements for an afterlife. All bodies were in similar flexed positions lying on their left sides with knees raised up towards their chin. In comparison, most bodies excavated from Egypt dating to the predynastic period are in a similar position, however at Merimda Beni Salama and
El-Amra El Amra is a town in northern Algeria. Description El Amra, in Arabic: العامرة (the full, opulent) ("crown of agriculture" 2), until the decree of 2 January 1976, is a municipality of the wilaya Of Aïn Defla in Algeria, located about 15 ...
bodies were found on their right sides. From the time these bodies were buried up until the Middle Kingdom period, the dead were laid on their sides. After this period they were buried on their backs (dorsal position), and from the
Fifth Dynasty The Fifth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty V) is often combined with Dynasties III, IV and VI under the group title the Old Kingdom. The Fifth Dynasty pharaohs reigned for approximately 150 years, from the early 25th century BC until ...
the bodies were always fully extended. Archaeological interest in Gebelein started in the early 18th century and was included in
Benoît de Maillet Benoît de Maillet (Saint-Mihiel, 12 April 1656 – Marseille, 30 January 1738) was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant. He formulated an evolutionary hypothesi ...
's ''Description de l'Egypte''. The site includes the remains from a temple to the deity
Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sk ...
with a number of
cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...
s on mud bricks and a royal
stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...
from the 2nd Dynasty and
3rd Dynasty The Third Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty III) is the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Other dynasties of the Old Kingdom include the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth. The capital during the period of the Old Kingdom was at Memphis. Overview A ...
. Later period finds include 400 Demotic and Greek
ostraca An ostracon ( Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ...
from a 2nd–1st century BC mercenary garrison. As well as official excavations, many artefacts from the site were traded on the antiquities market and can be found in the museums of Turin, Cairo, Berlin, Lyons and the British Museum.


Description

The bodies were buried in separate shallow graves, placed in the fetal position (knees raised towards their heads), which was the most common form for Egyptian burials of the time. In 1967, a series of X-rays and photographs of all mummified bodies in the British Museum's Egyptian Antiquities collection provided a detailed analysis for the mummies from the Gebelein excavations. The findings are summarized below: The first body excavated had red hair; this led to the nickname of "Ginger" by curators and later by the public. After the
Human Tissue Act 2004 The Human Tissue Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that applied to England, Northern Ireland and Wales, which consolidated previous legislation and created the Human Tissue Authority to "regulate the removal, storage, u ...
, the British Museum has developed policies for ethical treatment of human remains, and no longer uses this nickname.


Death of Gebelein Man

In November 2012 it was revealed that EA 32751 (Gebelein Man) had probably been murdered. A CAT scan of the mummified body taken at the
Cromwell Hospital The Cromwell Hospital is a private sector hospital located in the South Kensington area of London. It is operated by international healthcare company Bupa. History The hospital, which was designed by Holder Mathias, was established by Bank of Cre ...
in London showed that Gebelein Man was aged about 18 to 20 at the time of his death and was well-muscled. Under his left shoulder blade, the scan revealed a puncture to the body; the murder weapon was used with such force that it slightly damaged the shoulder blade, but shattered the rib beneath it and penetrated the lung. It was believed that the injury was caused by a copper blade or flint knife at least 12 cm in length and 2 cm wide. Daniel Antoine, the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's expert on human remains, believes that Gebelein Man had been taken by surprise by the attack as there were no defense wounds.


Exhibition history

The mummies were acquired by the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in 1900. One male adult body, museum number EA 32751 (then nicknamed "Ginger"), went on display in 1901, and was the earliest mummified body seen by the public. Apart from maintenance, it has been on continuous display in the same gallery since 1901. In 1987 the body was temporarily taken off display for restoration and a female mummified body replaced it. She was nicknamed "Gingerella" even though the body has long brown hair. The male body, EA 32751, is displayed in a reconstructed sand grave in the British Museum in room 64 and case 15. Though Budge wrote of "pots and flints" with the body, these artefacts were not acquired by the museum. A number of Egyptian grave goods taken from similar graves of the period are instead used in the display. The grave goods include black-topped clay pots that were typical of the predynastic period through to Naqada II, and plain and buff coloured pots and bowls typical of slightly later periods. There are also slate palettes, hard stone vessels and flint knives which would be associated with more elaborate burials of the historical period. Of the other five bodies, only the female adult, given museum number EA 32752, has been exhibited. In 1997-8 the body was part of a tour to Rome as part of the Palazzo Ruspoli, ''Ancient Faces'' exhibition. Again in 2001 the body went to Birmingham as part of the Gas Hall ''Egypt Revealed'' exhibition. In 2001, before going out on loan, the body had some restoration using Japanese kozo paper to secure a loose finger, reattach a rib and reattach some locks of hair. Strips of
polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging ( plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including b ...
were used to reduce movement of the right arm.


See also

*
List of unsolved murders These lists of unsolved murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances. * List of unsolved murders (before 1900) * List of unsolved murders (1900–1979) * List of unsolved murders (1980–1999) * List of u ...
*
Ötzi the Iceman Ötzi, also called the Iceman, is the natural mummy of a man who lived some time between 3350 and 3105 BC, discovered in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps (hence the nickname "Ötzi") on the border between Austria and Italy. Ötzi is believed to ...
, a rough contemporary.


Footnotes


Sources

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ginger (Mummy) 4th millennium BC in Egypt 1896 archaeological discoveries Anthropology Ancient Egyptian mummies Ancient Egyptian objects in the British Museum Unsolved murders in Egypt