Mummies in Colorado (3)
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Boulder
MES, University of Colorado Museums Mummy - Denver Post Archives
A dynastic Egyptian mummy could easily be overlooked amid University of Colorado's Dennis Van Gerven's 420 Nubian mummies dating to 600 AD. Besides the news photo above, I am unable to find any more information regarding "MES." Denver (2)
Denver Museum of Nature & Science 2001 Colorado Boulevard Denver, CO 80205-5798 303.370.6000
There are two mummies in the Museum, both female. They were CT Scanned back in the 1990's at which time they picked up the nicknames of the "rich one," and the "poor one." The "rich one" had a number of amulets placed inside her wrappings, and seemed to have undergone a higher level of mummification than the "poor one." The quality of the linen used in the wrappings suggested to investigators that she was fairly wealthy. The "rich one's" mummified organs had even been individually wrapped and returned to her body cavity, and a dense metal object in her chest area suggested a heart scarab. Fast forward to 2017, Michele Koons, the museum’s curator of archaeology organized new CT Scans and C14 tests for the mummies. Now the mummies have new names based on their ages. The "rich one" is now the "2900 year old mummy," and the "poor one" is the "2400 year old mummy. The differences in mummification are now seen not so much as a difference of their stations in life, but rather as the prevailing style of mummification of the age in which they lived. And they have much in common. Both women were about 5 feet tall, died in their 30's and had teeth worn down by sand in their food. 
The 2400 year old mummy: Photo by the author June 1997
As of October 2017 they are now part of a state of the art exhibition on Level 3 called Egyptian Mummies. Their new stories based on scientific analysis put the mummies in the context of the age in which they lived. There is an interactive touch-table where the mummies can be digitally "unwrapped. " The exhibit also has burial goods, temple models, and a forensic facial reconstruction based on the skull of one of the mummies.
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The sarcophagus of Mose: Photo by the author June 1997
1. The 2400 year old mummy. (Formerly "the poor one.") Ptolemaic. Female. 5 feet tall. Died in her 30's. Partially unwrapped with jumbled bones. Organs not removed. Fewer layers and poorer quality linen. One of her eyelashes was analysed and showed that her diet consisted mainly of barley and other local Nilotic crops. She is buried in someone else's coffin. Red mummy braces on the coffin point towards a priest of Amun at Thebes, constructed about 600 years before her death. 2. The 2900 year old mummy. (Formerly "the rich one.") Female. 5 feet tall. Died in her 30's. She has false eyes and hair extensions. Her neck and mouth are filled with resin-soaked linen to give a more life-like appearance to the face after having been desiccated by natron. She has jewelry and a stone heart amulet. Each organ bundle seems to be accompanied with a wax figure of the corresponding son of Horus. Like the 2400 year old mummy she is also is buried in another person's coffin, this one dating to about 100 years after her death. The inscriptions of the coffin tell that it was made for Mose whose father's name was Hor-udja and whose mother's name was Ta-Hu-Nefer. Pueblo (1)
The Denver mummies were purchased by a well-to-do Pueblo businessman, Andrew McClelland while in Egypt as part of a world tour in 1904. They were originally shipped to Pueblo for display, but are now on permanent loan to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science from the Rosemount Museum in Pueblo. The Rosemount Museum is still home to the 1904 McClelland Collection of World Curiosities. I find one source that suggests there is still a mummy there on the 3rd floor collected by the Thatchers who owned Rosemount, but this has yet to be confirmed. This video about the Rosemount Museum on YouTube from TheCnTv channel shows a brief glimpse of the Thatcher mummy at time stamp 8:55. If anyone knows anything more about this mummy, please drop me a line.
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Denver Art Museum
100 W 14th Ave Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
(720) 865-5000
No mummies but a beautiful mummy case 332-302 BC.
100 W 14th Ave Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
(720) 865-5000
No mummies but a beautiful mummy case 332-302 BC.
