NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 29away from pure public spectacle (though it partly
remained that) and into the realm of scientific
analysis. His A History of Egyptian Mummies
is considered as one of the founding texts of
Egyptology.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a
series of important archaeological discoveries
provided new insights as Egyptology was
developing into a more formal discipline. In 1881
a huge cache of royal mummies from the New
Kingdom—including Seti I’s missing body—
was discovered in the Theban Necropolis,
followed in 1898 by the tomb of Amenhotep II in
the Valley of the Kings. Many of these mummies
were unwrapped, but their physical appearances
and any artifacts were carefully documented
according to the academic practices of the time.
In the early 1900s new methods for study-
ing mummies came into practice. Grafton El-
liot Smith, an anatomist at the Cairo School of
Medicine, photographed the royal mummies.
His 1912 book, Catalogue of the Royal Mummies
in the Museum of Cairo, is still used as a reference.
Smith was the first to use x-rays on mummies.
Mummies were beginning to be seen as pre-
cious repositories of knowledge in addition to
being human remains that demanded respect.
Some old habits died hard, however. As late as
1900, a tomb believed to hold Pharaoh Djer,
who died circa 3055 B.C., was excavated. Djer is
thought to be the third king from the 1st dynasty,
one of the first rulers to preside over a unified
Egypt. Yet when a mummified arm, complete
with bracelets, was found, the jewelry was care-
fully removed and preserved. As for the arm,
it was noted, photographed, and thrown in the
trash—an act that would fill modern scholars
with horror and outrage.BY THE 1870s Egypt had become a fashionable winter holiday desti-
nation for wealthy Europeans. In 1877 the English writer Amelia Ed-
wards published a book about her experiences there. She recorded
impressions of events such as the discovery of a sarcophagus at
Kurna, on the banks of the Nile. Other memorable events included
a local Egyptian governor who invited her to lunch inside a tomb
that had been converted into a warehouse for mummies.ON HOLIDAY
AUTHOR OF SEVERAL BOOKS ON PYRAMIDS AND DAILY LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT,
JOSÉ MIGUEL PARRA HAS PARTICIPATED IN RECENT EXCAVATIONS AT LUXOR.TOURISTS POSE ON CAMELS IN
FRONT OF THE SPHINX AT GIZA
IN A GERMAN STEREOSCOPIC
IMAGE FROM THE 1880S.
AKG/ALBUMBOOKS
The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy
Roger Luckhurst,
Oxford University Press, 2012.
Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology 1:
From Antiquity to 1881
Jason Thompson,
American University in Cairo Press, 2015.Learn more