Account of the examination of the mummy of Pet-maut-ioh-mes : brought from Egypt by the late John Gosset, Esq. and now deposited in the museum in the island of Jersey / communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by T.J. Pettigrew.

  • Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph, 1791-1865.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of the examination of the mummy of Pet-maut-ioh-mes : brought from Egypt by the late John Gosset, Esq. and now deposited in the museum in the island of Jersey / communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by T.J. Pettigrew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    father, Isaac Gosset, Esq. to the Island of Jersey, and has formed the com- mencement of a Museum, which promises to rise rapidly into distinction. In Mr. Gosset’s Journal I find the following entry : “ Thebes, May 12, 1835. Several Fellahs, who may be called the resur- rection men of Thebes, are in the habit of excavating for antiquities, which they sell to travellers in spite of the Pacha’s monopoly and of his ex- cavator, a Turk, who employs twenty or thirty boys constantly, but sel- dom finds any thing. A gang, composed of five, sent us word that they had found a tomb untouched, and said, if we wished to see it, we might come at night with one of their party. Accordingly Mr. Lane and myself went this evening. From the tomb we descended through a narrow, steep, and winding passage, into a small cavern hewn in the rock, into which we groped upon our hands and feet and found three Mummies. It was impossible here to open or examine them. We were covered with dust, and almost stifled going down the pit to the cavern, but delighted to see the manner in which the ancient Egyptians buried their dead. This style of Mummy is very ancient, being of the time of the Pharaohs : it is in two cases, each of which is beautifully painted, the first case not unlike the style of painting and subjects in the tombs, the top representing the ceiling; inside, offerings to Osiris, &c. Priests with leopard-skins, snake, jackal, and hare-headed divinities. A king’s name upon a leather bandage, flowers of lotus, a garland, also a wreath round the forehead.” It appears that the Mummy, to the notice of which the present paper must necessarily be confined, was found in one of the western valleys, where Mr. Wilkinson tells us he saw a tomb bearing the name of Amunoph III. the King of the Vocal Statue; and which may fairly be considered as the most ancient catacomb hitherto discovered in those valleys. Colonel Oldfield, through Sir George Staunton, favoured me with a fac-simile of the paintings at the bottom of the inner case of the Jersey Mummy, which I am happy to lay before the Society, (see PI. XIX.) and in which it will be seen there is a repre- sentation of the King Amunoph III. and beneath his figure cartouches, con- taining, in hieroglyphical characters, his name and distinction. From this cir- cumstance it was not unreasonably conjectured that the Mummy might be that of the sovereign, although it must be remarked that the portrait or figure of the