Mummies in Virginia
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Richmond
University of Richmond: North Court's Ancient World Gallery University of Richmond North Court, Room 208 Richmond, Virginia 23173 Female mummy with coffin Her name as read by James Henry Breasted (1865-1935) is Ti-Ameny-Net. A digital representation of her coffin and a translation of its hieroglyphic inscriptions can be found here. Ti-Ameny-Net's Provenance The following, taken largely from an earlier version of the University of Richmond website, and from personal correspondence with the late Stuart Wheeler (Classics Chair), is a synopsis of what is known with certainty about the provenance of Ti-Ameny-Net and how she came to be at the University of Richmond. The mummy and mummy case of Ti-Ameny-Net was sold to Dr. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a member of the faculty of Richmond College and son-in-law of a Richmond College trustee by Edwin Smith (1822-1906) who is best known today for the Surgical Papyrus which bears his name. [The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus ] Curry, who had been touring up the Nile under the escort of John M. Cook of Thomas Cook and Son, reached Luxor in December of 1875. If Smith, resident in Luxor from 1858 to 1876, did not meet Curry's tour boat when it first docked (Smith frequently met tour boats when they docked so he could have first crack at selling antiquities to Americans and Europeans), news must have soon reached him that Mr. Curry, a fellow American, was eagerly seeking acquisitions for the new Richmond College Museum (founded 1872). Smith who would leave Egypt the following year may have been selling off his most valuable possessions at this time. At any rate, when they did meet, Smith soon made it known to Curry that he had a mummy for sale. Smith would have then recounted the story of how he had been presented with the mummy by the Prince of Wales for having served as the Prince's interpreter and guide during the latter's stay in Egypt in the Spring of 1868. Therefore, Ti-Ameny-Net may well belong to a series of "excavations" carried out for the Prince who had been granted a "reserve" by the Khedive to dig in an area around Luxor. After Curry purchased Ti-Ameny-Net from Smith, Curry and Cook reached an agreement whereby the mummy was to be consigned to the care of Cook, Son & Jenkins to be exhibited in their pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. A bulletin from the fair (a copy once was viewable at the Ti-Ameny-Net site) states that Ti-Ameny-Net was placed at the World's Ticket Office No. 84 Centennial grounds at the angle of Machinery Hall, facing the lake. One can only imagine that she made quite a stir, being billed erroneously as an Egyptian Princess. |
Ti-Ameny-Net finally arrived at Richmond College in December of 1876 where she and Mr. Curry were the honored guests at a reception banquet.
From September 1887 until 1914 Ti-Ameny-Net rested on the second floor of the south wing of Robert Ryland Hall in the James Thomas, Jr. Memorial Museum and Art Hall. In September, 1914 Richmond College moved to its present location. Since the new location had no museum, the former museum collections were dispersed and Ti-Ameny-Net reportedly spent some time in the living room of a Richmond College Professor until being moved to the Biology Museum in Maryland Hall. In 1977 Maryland Hall was remodeled and the Biology Museum was eliminated. She was then stored in a closet in North Court and was on her way to a dumpster when Classics Professor Stuart Wheeler saved her, keeping her in his office for a time before she finally to rest in the Ancient World Gallery. Ti-Ameny-Net's coffin: Anthropoid in form with pedestal. Made of wood covered with linen, plastered and painted. Based on iconography and overall design it is very probably of 26th Dynasty manufacture of a type frequently having a provenance of Deir el-Bahri. Below the collar is a kneeling figure of the goddess Nut with her wings outspread. Beneath the goddess Nut is a small false door and below that is a small partially destroyed vignette of Ti-Ameny-Net lying on her bier being visited by her ba. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
2800 Grove Avenue Richmond, VA 23221-2466 [Link to Museum's: Mummy, Secrets of the Tomb] Coffin and mummy of Tjeby (Accession no. 53.30.1) First Intermediate Period Dynasty XI (Pre-Conquest 2134-2061 B.C.E.) Polychrome wood with linen-wrapped mummy Museum Purchase The Adolph D. and Wilkens C. Williams Fund This coffin contains the linen-wrapped mummy of a man named Tjeby. His name and titles "the count and seal bearer of the King of Lower Egypt" as well as prayers to protect him in the afterlife, appear in the band of hieroglyphs. Eyes on the side of the coffin enabled him to see the rising sun. X-rays of the mummy reveal little left inside the wrappings. Additional URLs: http://museumpublicity.com/2012/02/25/university-of-richmond-museums-opens-ti-ameny-net-an-ancient-mummy-an-egyptian-woman-and-modern-science/ Caroline Quinn's 2010 Undergraduate thesis: Tchai-Ameny-Newit: A New Biography of the Curious Life andUn- Life of Richmond‟s Oldest Undergraduate, in conjunction with a paleopathological analysis and an examination of the current debates in bioarchaeological ethics http://www.academia.edu/7482532/Ti-Ameny-Net_Undergraduate_Thesis |
Of additional Interest!
Norfolk
Chrysler Museum of Art
One Memorial Place
Norfolk, Virginia 23510
(757) 664-6200
Fax: (757) 664-6201
[email protected]
While the Chrysler Museum of Art does not have an Egyptian mummy, they do have 170 Egyptian objects including an anthropoid coffin of the Roman period, a 26th dynasty sarcophagus cover, and an impressive stone sarcophagus of the 26th dynasty belonging to the Scorpion Charmer, Psamtik-seneb.
Norfolk
Chrysler Museum of Art
One Memorial Place
Norfolk, Virginia 23510
(757) 664-6200
Fax: (757) 664-6201
[email protected]
While the Chrysler Museum of Art does not have an Egyptian mummy, they do have 170 Egyptian objects including an anthropoid coffin of the Roman period, a 26th dynasty sarcophagus cover, and an impressive stone sarcophagus of the 26th dynasty belonging to the Scorpion Charmer, Psamtik-seneb.
