Usermontu is an ancient Egyptian

mummy 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 fu ...

exhibited at the

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum (REM) is devoted to ancient Egypt, located at Rosicrucian Park in the Rose Garden neighborhood of San Jose, California, United States. It was founded by the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC). The Rosicr ...

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

.Caption of the remains, from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum (inv. No: RC 1779). The name ''Usermontu'' – which means, "Powerful is Montu" – almost certainly does not match the still-unknown name originally belonged to the mummified man. The mistake arose because long after death the mummy was placed in a

coffin A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation. Sometimes referred to as a casket, any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for jewel ...

originally belonged to another man, a priest named Usermontu, and was still inside of it at the time of rediscovery.
The mummy is very well preserved, and is also known for having an ancient but sophisticated prosthetic pin in its left knee.

History

In 1971, the Rosicrucian Museum acquired two sealed ancient Egyptian coffins from

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. Unbeknownst to all, one of the coffin still contained the mummy which was discovered soon after the purchase. On the basis of the embalming type originally provided to “Usermontu”, it is believed that he was an upper-class Egyptian male who likely lived during the

New Kingdom of Egypt The New Kingdom, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the sixteenth century BC and the eleventh century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth dynasties of Egypt. Radioca ...

(between 16th–11th century BCE). For a reason that remains unknown to us, several centuries after death his corpse was put inside the coffin of the “real” Usermontu who lived during the

26th Dynasty The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) dynasty was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC (although others followed). The dynasty's reign (664–525 ...

. Some time around 400 BCE, as suggested by

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

, the body underwent another wrapping with

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...

bandages which are still visible today.
There is no clue of where the coffin and the mummy originally came from. In life the man should have been a natural redhead and his mummy is about tall.

Prosthetic pin

In August 1995, BYU professor

C. Wilfred Griggs Charles Wilfred Griggs (born 1942) is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. Biography Griggs was educated at BYU and Stanford University. Griggs received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Griggs cu ...

performed some X-ray scans on the Rosicrucian mummies and discovered the presence of a iron-made orthopedic screw inside “Usermontu”'s left knee. Griggs initially believed that the pin was inserted in modern times in order to reattach the leg to the rest of the body, so he later obtained permission to unwrap the leg and directly examine the pin in order to solve the mystery. After the examination, Griggs realized that the pin could not be inserted in modern times, and must have been placed after the man's death but before his burial, a hypothesis confirmed by further analysis. The pin was held in place by an organic resin, analogous to modern

bone cement Bone cements have been used very successfully to anchor artificial joints (hip joints, knee joints, shoulder and elbow joints) for more than half a century. Artificial joints (referred to as prostheses) are anchored with bone cement. The bone ceme ...

. By doing so, those who performed the operation ensured the integrity of the body, required for the ancient Egyptian afterlife.

References

{{authority control Ancient Egyptian priests Ancient Egyptian mummies 2nd-millennium BC births 2nd-millennium BC deaths