Head of a Mummy from Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt (Illustration)

Illustration

by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin
published on 20 March 2018

This is the upper part of a mummy of an unknown young man; probably, his age was below 21 years. The rest of the mummy is intact but is not shown here. The mummy was discovered in the 1820s CE. The elaborate preparation of this mummy is highly idiosyncratic and recalls the style of mummification used in the Old Kingdom.
Before wrapping the body of the man, the embalmers carefully modelled the facial features, using resin-soaked linen; the nose strikingly and unusually maintains and assumes its prominent form. The scalp above the forehead was left unwrapped; the hair, as well as part of its underlying skull, can be seen. The embalmers painted the facial features on the wrappings. Ptolemaic-Roman Period, after 305 BCE. From Thebes, modern-day Egypt. (The British, London).

About the Author

Associate Professor of Neurology and lover of the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia. I'm very interested in Mesopotamian history and always try to take photos of archaeological sites and artifacts in museums, both in Iraq and around the world.

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Uploaded by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, published on 20 March 2018 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

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