28 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
a public theater. The first recorded account of
a mummy unwrapping occurred in 1698. Ben-
oît de Maillet, the French consul in Cairo, was
the first European to delve beneath the bind-
ings and take extensive notes. In the early 1700s,
Christian Hertzog, apothecary to the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg, unwrapped a mummy in front of
an audience. He published his findings in the
book Mumiographia, a detailed account of the
artifacts found inside.
The public study of mummies continued
and reached a new peak in the early
19th century after the Napoleonic
Wars and English colonialism were
stirring up new interest in ancient
Egypt. Throughout the 19th cen-
tury, public mummy unwrappings
were highly popular events in
England. The man who pioneered
them was Thomas Pettigrew, a
19th-century English surgeon,
who became known later in life
as “Mummy Pettigrew.” He
began his Egyptology career asassistant to Giovanni Battista Belzoni, the Ital-
ian explorer who discovered the tomb of Seti I in- An astonishing find, the tomb was missing
its mummy.
As part of an exhibition of reliefs from Seti’s
tomb, Belzoni, aided by Pettigrew, unwrapped
a mummy before a group of physicians in 1821.
Pettigrew became fascinated himself and began
a lifelong career in the study of Egypt. In 1834 he
published a treatise on mummies that included
descriptions of the objects found inside.
Pettigrew’s public dissections of mummies
were wildly popular in the 1830s. Spectators
were left spellbound or nauseated as the face—
gaunt and desiccated but nevertheless that of
a recognizable human being, dead for many
thousands of years—was gradually revealed
from beneath its protective garments.
After noting that one individual had a
large bone tumor, Pettigrew began to see
how a mummy was a record of a real person.
He understood that his investigations could
reconstruct the details of an individual life.
Pettigrew’s insight moved the study of mummies
DEA/SCALA, FLORENCE
PUBLIC VIEW
Opened in 1824, the Egyptian Museum in Turin,
Italy, is the world’s oldest museum dedicated to
Egyptian culture. Artist Lorenzo Delleani depicts
how the exhibits, including mummies, were
displayed in the principal hall in this 1881 painting.
BRACELETS
FOR A KING
Colorful bracelets
(below) were taken
from a mummified
arm found in the
tomb of Pharaoh
Djer from Egypt’s 1st
dynasty. The limb was
discarded shortly after
being photographed.
Egyptian Museum,
Cairo
ARALDO DE LUCA