from C i i a m p o l l i o n - F i g e a c ,483 who has reduced them from the folio-
plates of Napoleon’s Description de VEgypte. Fig. 266 yields the perfect
Egyptian type.
From the mummy itself, now possessed by the University of Louisiana,
at New Orleans, (and which I have personally scrutinized,) I
present the most valuable specimen among all known to me; inasmuch
as it is one of the extremely rare instances where the date of a
deceased Egyptian can he positively determined by documentary
evidence.
Fig. 267. Portrait (Fig. 267) o f the
Mummy of G o t - th o th i-a u n k h ,
“ Chief of the Artificers,” ■who
diedinthe “YearX.” of thereign
of O so rk o n III. A man between
thirty and forty years of
age, who was alive in the year
b. c. 900; or, before a single
stone yet discovered at ancient
Babylon was inscribed with cu-
neatic characters. Here is the
history of its transmission to
this country:*^-.?
In 1845, Mr., Gliddon intimated,
from Paris, to his friend
Mr. A. C. Harris, the most influential
resident in Egypt, his
desire to procure a series of funereal antiquities to illustrate his Lectures in the IJnited
States. The letter fortunately overtook Mr. Harris during one of this gentleman’s archaeological
visits at Thebes; where accident enabled him to obtain one admirable mummy, from
.the well-known Werda, in perfect condition. It was conveyed in his own yacht to Alexandria,
with a dozen other human mummies collected at Thebes, Abydos, and Memphis,
intended for Mr. Gliddon. '
In 1846, after fruitless efforts to ship them, four were sequestrated at the Alexandrian
Custom-house: Mohammed Ali, since 1885, having forbidden the exportation of Antiquities
by any but agents of European powers.484 An official application, made by the United States’
Consul to the Viceroy failed; and, in 1849, these four mummies were found to have
perished, through damp, in the Custom-house. Happily, Mr. Harris had preserved the
most valuable specimen at his own residence.
In 1848, after Mohammed Ali’s superannuation, permission to export Mr. Gliddon’s collec-
tion was refused by Ibraheem Pasha. On his death, 1849, Mr. Harris’s personal claims
upon the courtesies of the Government obtained leave from Abbass Pasha; and the mummy,
(with two others divested of their coffins), was forwarded to Liverpool, where the influential
complaisance of Messrs. Baring Brothers obtained their transhipment to the United States,
free of examination at the Quarantine and Custom-house. At New York, similar facilities
were accorded to Mr. B-. K. Haight; and, after five years of disappointments, Mr. Gliddon
received these specimens in November, .1849.
Opened at Boston, June, 1850, in the presence of two thousand persons, by Prof. Agassiz,
and a committee of sixteen of the leading physicians, these coffins yielded the embalmed
corpse of the Theban Priest Got-thothi-aunkh, (latinicé, “ Dixit Thoth, vivat! ”) who died
in the tenth year of King Osorkon III., early in the ninth century b . c„,or about 2750 years
ago. The amusing equivoque of gender that occurred at its opening received satisfactory
elucidation in the “ Letter from Mr. Gliddon about the Papyrus found on the Boston Mummy
” published in the Boston Evening Transcript, August 21st and 22d, 1850. A copy of
this article is appended to the mummy, -which, frith all its documentary cerements, now
lies open to inspection at the Anatomical Museum of the Louisiana University.
Fac-similes of all the hieroglyphical inscriptions on this mummy were forwarded by Mr.
Gliddon to Mr. Birch; and the only material emendation of the former’s readings, added
by this erudite hierologist, is, that the legend on the papyrus designates the corpse'as that
of the 1 Chief of the Artificers of the abode of Ammon,” i. e. Thebes.
Submitted, at Philadelphia, to the scientific scrutiny of the late Dr. Morton, this mummied
body was not only pronounced to be “ unequivocally
identified with the reign of Osorkon III., by
finding the cartouche or oval of that king stamped, in
four different places, on a leather cross, placed diagonally
on the thorax in front; ” but the same authority
also declares,' “ there are 130 embalmed Egyptian
heads in the collection of the Academy, but none of
them can be even approximately dated; whence the
great interest that attaches itself to the present example.”
486 And finally, on the 23d of January, 1852,
the whole of these archaeological facts have been confirmed,
at New Orleans, by the personal investigation
of Monsieur J. J. Ampbre, whose opinions in
Egyptology are decisive.486 Mr. Gliddon pointed out
to me, on this corpse, the only absolute confirmation,
he says, of Scripture, with which long studies of
Egyptian lore have made him personally acquainted.
All male mummies comply with the ordinances of
Genesis xli. 14; and with Gen. xvii. 11; Exod. iv. 25—
but Got-thothi’s illustrates the accuracy of Eze-
ktkt/s description of an “ Egyptian” — xvi. 26; and
xxiii? 19, 20.
These Figs., 268 and 269, are copies of the mummy-cases. The face of the inner
one is gilt; but bitumen had obliterated the legends.
That*the influx of Asiatics into the Valley of the Nile commenced
long before the foundation of the Empire under M e n e s—that is,
prior to b . c. 4000 — there can he no further question; and that amalgamations
of foreign with the Nile’s domestic races commenced at a
pre-historic epoch, is now equally certain. Hence it is evident, that
it must be often impossible to define some crania of these blended
Egyptian races with precision, so great is the intermixture of primitive
types. The facts however, drawn by Morton from the monuments
and crania, prove, that the Egyptians-proper possessed small,
elongated heads, with receding foreheads, and an average interhal
capacity of 80 cubic inches. Such view is fortified by the resemblance
of this type to the modern native races of Egypt and surrounding
countries ; as the Fellahs, the Bedawees on both sides of the river
and in the western oases, the Nubians, Berbers, &c. Their skulls
have been already figured [supra, pp. 226, 227].