Mummies And Their Mysteries

Discusses mummies found around the world, including Peru, Denmark, and the Italian Alps, and explains how studying them provides clues to past ways of life.

Describes the wide variety of human remains, the use and abuse of them, what they reveal about life in the past, and contemporary attitudes toward the dead.

Discusses mummies found around the world, including ones in Peru, Denmark, and the Italian Alps, and explains how studying them provides clues to past ways of life.

Shortly after discovering the tomb of King Tut, several people on the expedition became sick and died. Many people thought the ancient Egyptians cursed those who entered the tombs. Was King Tut getting revenge from the grave? Read this high-interest title for young students and decide what you think.

From the Nile to the Hudson, the story of how two Egyptian mummies joined an American museum collection. In 1909, two mummies, one dating from the 21st Dynasty and the other from the Ptolemaic Period, arrived in Albany, New York. Purchased from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by Albany businessman Samuel Brown for the Albany Institute of History & Art (AIHA), they have been on continuous exhibition since then and are the most popular, celebrated, and best remembered of the museum’s collections. The story of their discovery in the tombs at Deir el-Bahri and their subsequent purchase by Brown, transport by steamship from Cairo to New York City, and steamboat travel to Albany was covered extensively by the Albany newspapers, and visitors from school-aged children to senior citizens often recount stories about their first encounter with the Albany mummies. The Mystery of the Albany Mummies tells the fascinating tale of these two mummies, from their initial mummification in ancient Egypt, to their acquisition by the AIHA in 1909, and finally to 2013, when the mystery of their identities was uncovered through the intersection of historical scholarship, science, and technology. In the book, which draws on the Institute’s 2013–2014 exhibition “GE Presents: The Mystery of the Albany Mummies,” scholars from around the world use new scholarship, scientific methods, and medical technology to determine the ages, sexes, occupations, and lifestyles of these two ancient denizens of the AIHA. Peter Lacovara is Director of the Ancient Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage Fund, and was previously Senior Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum and Assistant Curator in the Department of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is the author of many books, including The World of Ancient Egypt: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. Sue H. D’Auria is an Egyptologist who worked for nearly two decades in the Egyptian Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and was an Associate Curator at the Huntington Museum of Art. She has edited several books, including Offerings to the Discerning Eye: An Egyptological Medley in Honor of Jack A. Josephson.

Presents various accounts of mummies found throughout the world and what these bodies reveal about the times in which they lived.