Day 27 - Mummy
February 27, 2018
Galley 126 holds more than two dozen inner and outer coffins, elaborately painted in tones of brown, orange, turquoise, white, and black (the last always used to depict eyes). It also contains shabtis (statuettes of attendant or servant figures that were placed in tombs), canopic jars, funeral papyri, and other objects found in a large burial near Thebes. The objects date from ca. 1300 B.C.
What stops me dead, though - af igurative rather than literal turn of phrase, obviously, but apt - is a mummy itself. Somehow I've tuned out the museum guard in the hallway saying repeatedly, "There's a mummy back there," like a carnival barker trying to attract an audience for this rather out-of-the-way gallery. So when I do see the mummy, it comes as a surprise, and maybe more, a shock. Does this really belong in an art museum, for one thing? It feels a bit out of place, though maybe it wouldn't be in a natural history museum. Or maybe it would. It almost feels like an invasion of privacy, although the deceased is in no position to complain. We are being invited to gawk at the remains of a human body. On the plus side, it is a reminder that every one of the inner and outer coffins also contained a human body, But it is not an object of art.
The mummy is maybe 5 and 1/2 feet long. It is wrapped from head to foot in linen. Perhaps at some point, the linen was pure white; now it is light tan in tone. The linen is held in place with narrow bands of fabric crossed across its chest, along with three bands at the knees, calves, and ankles, or thereabouts. I keep referring to the mummy as "it," but the caption says that radiography indicates that it was a man. The figure appears to be very slim; was this the way the person was in real life, or a result of the mummification and burial processes, with internal organs removed and the arms perhaps bound closely to the sides?
I remember that at the beginning of the year, Charly looked out my bedroom window and saw what appeared to be a long black station wagon, its windows tinted dark, double-parked on 74th Street, with a gurney outside the vehicle's rear door. Two men entered a brownstone. We waited for what seemed like a long time, and finally they came back down carrying a stretcher with a black body bag on it, with straps holding the body inside the bag in place. It strikes me that the technology of wrapping and binding the body hasn't changed that much in 3000+ years - maybe the process is dictated by human anatomy.
Who was this person? The caption says that he was named Kharushere. Radiography also reveals that three amulets were placed on the body. I am glad the wrappings were not removed to permit display of the ornaments-it helps preserve a modicum of dignity- although I suppose the wrappings were cut off all the time in burials that were looted.
What stops me dead, though - af igurative rather than literal turn of phrase, obviously, but apt - is a mummy itself. Somehow I've tuned out the museum guard in the hallway saying repeatedly, "There's a mummy back there," like a carnival barker trying to attract an audience for this rather out-of-the-way gallery. So when I do see the mummy, it comes as a surprise, and maybe more, a shock. Does this really belong in an art museum, for one thing? It feels a bit out of place, though maybe it wouldn't be in a natural history museum. Or maybe it would. It almost feels like an invasion of privacy, although the deceased is in no position to complain. We are being invited to gawk at the remains of a human body. On the plus side, it is a reminder that every one of the inner and outer coffins also contained a human body, But it is not an object of art.
The mummy is maybe 5 and 1/2 feet long. It is wrapped from head to foot in linen. Perhaps at some point, the linen was pure white; now it is light tan in tone. The linen is held in place with narrow bands of fabric crossed across its chest, along with three bands at the knees, calves, and ankles, or thereabouts. I keep referring to the mummy as "it," but the caption says that radiography indicates that it was a man. The figure appears to be very slim; was this the way the person was in real life, or a result of the mummification and burial processes, with internal organs removed and the arms perhaps bound closely to the sides?
I remember that at the beginning of the year, Charly looked out my bedroom window and saw what appeared to be a long black station wagon, its windows tinted dark, double-parked on 74th Street, with a gurney outside the vehicle's rear door. Two men entered a brownstone. We waited for what seemed like a long time, and finally they came back down carrying a stretcher with a black body bag on it, with straps holding the body inside the bag in place. It strikes me that the technology of wrapping and binding the body hasn't changed that much in 3000+ years - maybe the process is dictated by human anatomy.
Who was this person? The caption says that he was named Kharushere. Radiography also reveals that three amulets were placed on the body. I am glad the wrappings were not removed to permit display of the ornaments-it helps preserve a modicum of dignity- although I suppose the wrappings were cut off all the time in burials that were looted.
It isn't a work of art, but it's a reminder of the purpose, or a purpose, of art, certainly the sarcophagi--immortality, or at least ensuring an afterlife.
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