Standing close to him, you see a closed eye man lying peacefully on his back and covered with yellow-decorated linen. His cheeks are fat as if he is taking a nap after a heavy meal and later he will get up.
This is the mummy of Masaharti, the high priest of Amun at Thebes between 1054 and 1045 BC, on display at the Mummification Museum in Luxor.
On May 7, the museum celebrated its 25 silver jubilee.
“It is a unique and important museum that gives a detailed explanation of the mummification process, one of the most important topics related to ancient Egyptian,” Mohamed Shehata, Director General of Mummification Museum, told the Egyptian Mail.
“Mummifiers had to have full knowledge of medical sciences and anatomy. They did the mummification process in 70 days,” he added.
Shehata said that the mummification process was divided into three rituals. The first took 15 days, starting by laying the deceased on a bed, removing his clothing and purifying his body with water from the Sacred Lake, which is in the middle of the Karnak Temple complex.
“Then they broke a bone and extracted the brain in liquid form through the nostrils. They filled the brain cavity with linen fillings impregnated with natron salt, oils and perfumes.
“They did the same process with the abdominal viscera using a bronze scalpel to make a 10-centimetre incision on the left side of the stomach. The organs are removed and replaced with linen soaked in natron, oils and perfumes.
“The brain and organs were preserved in canopic jars.”
Shehata went on to explain that for the next ritual, which lasted 40 days, the whole body is soaked in natron salt to absorb all body moisture and bacteria.
The natron salt is then removed from the deceased and replaced the temporary linen fillings in the head and abdomen with fresh material.
The body was then coated with a substance similar to bitumen to protect the mummy, which became solid.
The mummy was wrapped in layers of linen. For kings, they put gold amulets between each layer. This last ritual took 15 days before the mummy was put inside the coffin and presented to the family of the deceased.
The mummy of Masaharti was found in 1881 in the Deir el-Bahri cache, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor.
“The mummy is in perfect condition, reflecting the high standard in the art of mummification during the 21st Dynasty 21 (1069-1945 BC),” Shehata said.
Masaharti’s mummy is among 73 artefacts in display cabinets resembling those of the British Museum in London, Shehata said.
The artefacts include mummies of persons and animals, canopic jars, mummification tools such as scalpels, scissors and brushes plus statues of deities and elaborately-decorated coffins.
Shehata said that the artefacts, which date back to the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) until the Late Period (525-332 BC), were taken from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir and the West Bank at Luxor where the ancient Egyptians buried their dead.
Among the mummified sacred animals on display are a ram, sacred to Khnum, the creator of man on his potter’s wheel and the cat, sacred to the goddess Bastet in addition to mummies of crocodiles, jackals and monkeys.
There are also statues of Nephthys, who played an important role in ancient Egyptian funerary beliefs and Osiris, the god of vegetation and the underworld. Models of boats, which were used to transport the mummy to the cemetery on the west bank of Nile, are also there.
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