Thesis advisor: Christy Pottroff / Thesis advisor: Paul Lewis / In 1822 the Western world experienced a revolution in literature and archaeology when the Rosetta Stone was successfully translated, and a craze coined Egyptomania took over the Western world. American literature—ranging from newspaper articles, travel narratives, short fiction, and books concerning ethnology and race science—became inundated with discussion of the material culture of ancient Egypt. As authors interacted with the material culture, they began to question who the ancient Egyptians were and how they managed to create such monuments. Many American authors struggled to comprehend how such ancient people were so advanced in methods of art and engineering, thus thwarting the current nineteenth-century ideals of progress. Especially among white Americans, there was anxiety that the ancient Egyptians were not European, leading to an overall fear of Oriental superiority. My aim here is not to explore the effects of Egyptomania in general on American culture, but rather to analyze how specific artifacts, monuments, and mummies were received and adapted by nineteenth-century authors. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: English.

Yes / Vast numbers of votive mummies were produced in Egypt during the Late Pharaonic, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods. Although millions remain in situ, many were removed and have ultimately entered museum collections around the world. There they have often languished as uncomfortable reminders of antiquarian practices with little information available to enhance their value as artefacts worthy of conservation or display. A multi-disciplinary research project, based at the University of Manchester, is currently redressing these issues. One recent aspect of this work has been the characterization of natural products employed in the mummification of votive bundles. Using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and the well-established biomarker approach, analysis of 24 samples from 17 mummy bundles has demonstrated the presence of oils/fats, natural waxes, petroleum products, resinous exudates, and essential oils. These results confirm the range of organic materials employed in embalming and augment our understanding of the treatment of votives. In this first systematic initiative of its kind, initial findings point to possible trends in body treatment practices in relation to chronology, geography, and changes in ideology which will be investigated as the study progresses. Detailed knowledge of the substances used on individual bundles has also served to enhance their value as display items and aid in their conservation. / RCB is supported by a PhD studentship from the Art and Humanities Research Council (43019R00209). L.M. and S.A.W. are supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Award (RPG-2013-143).

L'objet de ce travail est d'étudier le système de représentation qu'avaient les Égyptiens du cerveau, à travers une recherchelexicographique, incluant textes médicaux et textes funéraires. La connaissance que nous avons de la conception du cerveau, en Égypte ancienne, est notre propre représentation de la leur. Une approche des connaissances médicales, grâce à l'étude des textes médicaux, notamment, le papyrus Edwin Smith, sera confrontée à celle des momies, dont lapathologie cérébrale ou spinale a pu faire l'objet d'un diagnostic rétrospectif. L'étude des textes funéraires, en particulier, le Rituel de l'Embaumement, donnera de nouveaux éléments, permettant la recherche de la signification rituelle du traitement de l'endocrâne, incluant ou non une excérébration, comparée à l'utilité de cette pratique pour la conservation de la momie. Une étude de momies, centrée sur le traitement du crâne, rassemblant « éléments durs » et « éléments mous », complètera les données fournies par les textes égyptiens, à travers une approche de l'évolution des pratiques funéraires. / The object of this work is the study of the system of representation that had the Egyptians about the brain, through a lexicographical research, with medical and funerary texts included. The knowledge that we have from the conception of the brain, in Ancient Egypt, is our own representation of their. An access to medical texts, more particularly, the papyrus EdwinSmith, will be compared with mummies’ study, the cerebral or spinal diseases of whom could be the subject of etrospective diagnosis. The study of funerary texts, particularly, the Embalming Ritual, will give new elements, which allowed the research of ritual signification of skull’s treatment, including or not an excerebration, compared to the usefulness of thispractice for the conservation of the mummy. A study of mummies, focused on skull’s treatment, reassembling « hard elements » and « soft elements », will complete the ideas given by Egyptian texts, through an approach of the evolution of funerary texts.

At various points in human history, tattooing has been ubiquitous on almost every continent on Earth, used for reasons of aestheticism, religious beliefs or for social purposes. To study the art of tattooing with respect to a particular culture, one must always be critical to any references to the practice (written, pictorial or artefactual) due to issues of translation and misinterpretation. Complete verification may only come with the discovery of actual tattooed human remains. In combination with artefactual and anthropological evidence, these remains not only provide physical proof of the practice in a culture's ancestry but also possess the ability to link various other forms of physical evidence, which on their own would remain speculative. By its very nature, tattooing may only exist while the bearer is alive. Once the owner dies, the skin, along with the tattoo, decomposes (under normal decomposition conditions) and is lost forever. However, tattoos may survive if the dermal layers of the skin are preserved, either by natural or artificial means. The processes of mummification in various civilisations have provided us with a rare opportunity to study the art and processes of tattooing in antiquity. Existing tattooed mummified remains have been found in: Egypt; Siberia; Eastern Central Asia; Greenland; Alaska and St. Lawrence Islands; Central Andes (Peru and Chile); Philippines; New Zealand and Italy. Existing literature regarding the analysis of tattooing inks and pigments once deposited into the skin is very limited. Comparatively, the industrial organic pigments used to colour the majority of modern tattooing inks sold today have not been officially approved by any regulating body and as such, manufacturers are not required to disclose the chemical ingredients of their products. Chemical identification of these tattoo pigments post-procedure will aid medical practitioners in the event of complications or for the purposes of tattoo removal. Forensically, tattoos are often one of the distinguishing features used in the identification of victims of crime or accidents. Experiments were carried out using an animal model (Sus scrofa) for the tattooing. Given the theoretically large but ultimately limited range of substances available to both ancient and modern tattooists, the premise of the experiment involved surveying the literature regarding possible tattooing pigments and either obtaining or reproducing a careful selection of these in the laboratory. These pigments were then tattooed onto the ii animal model and after allowing for the essential healing period, the tattooed areas were excised, with those tattooed with traditional pigments subjected to various simulated mummification environments.

This dissertation excavates the political economy and cultural politics of the "Vanishing Indian." While much of the scholarship situates this ubiquitous American trope as a rhetorical representation, I consider the ways in which the "Vanishing Indian" was necessarily rooted in the emerging capitalist and cultural economy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By combining cultural history, Native studies, material culture, and public history, my project addresses a predicament peculiar to settler societies. Specifically, I address the dilemma faced by an immigrant people who attempted to make the transition from colonial to national without being indigenous. My investigation into the complex historical processes of a symbolic, material, and oftentimes-ambivalent reconfiguration of self seeks to broaden our understanding of a national identity not only rooted, but also deeply invested, in settler-colonialism. The ancient mummified remains of an early Woodland aboriginal woman disinterred in Kentucky in 1811, are the axis around which this dissertation revolves. The history of her disinterment links American national identity formation with capitalist imperatives for natural resource extraction, the exploitation of slave labor, settler expansion, and the development of another form of "Indian Removal" – practiced below ground, as it were. The plunder of ancient ruins, disinterment of Indian graves, and the correlated development of early American archaeology became part of a larger national project. While Native remains were not in and of themselves economic resources, increasingly, speculators in science and antiquities came to regard them as both natural and national resources. Their disinterment was certainly as much a byproduct of scientific speculation as of speculation in lands "opened up" by western expansion. The appropriation of Native remains became a locus of power through which Americans sought to add the length and breadth of an historic past to the promise of a national future. Ultimately, I seek to interrogate one of the many aims of colonization through settlement—the appropriation of indigenous status—and situate a history of science, curiosity, and the appropriation of American Indian land and bodies at the center of this development.

An Inka Mummy from Chuscha Mountain (Northwest Argentina): Preliminary Research ResultsEighty years ago, residents of the region between the provinces of Salta and Catamarca recovered a well-preserved body from a plateau located just below the peak of the mountain of Chuscha, which has an altitude of 5400 meters above sea level. This find was transported to the Museum of Natural Sciences and Anthropology of Mendoza for the purpose of undertaking an interdisciplinary study. The physical anthropological analysis determined that the body represented a young girl of approximately eight years of age. The child, who was dressed in typical Inca style, was the principal object of a ritual sacrifice. Her death was caused by a lance that pierced her thorax. This form of sacrifice of individual victims is unusual, although there have not been many other examples of high altitude mummies recovered to date. Two exploratory expeditions to the region added some information concerning Inca domination in this region, which has only recently been the focus of archaeological investigations. / Ochenta años atrás, lugareños de la zona entre las provincias de Salta y Catamarca extrajeron un cuerpo bien conservado de una meseta ubicada al pie de la cumbre del nevado de Chuscha, cuya altura es de 5400 metros. Este hallazgo fue llevado al Museo de Ciencias Naturales y Antropológicas de Mendoza con el fin de proceder a su estudio interdisciplinario. El análisis de antropología física determinó que se trataba de un individuo femenino de ocho años de edad, aproximadamente. El infante vestía un ajuar de típico estilo Inca y fue el personaje principal de un sacrificio ritual. Su muerte fue ocasionada al arrojársele una lanza que le atravesó el tórax. Este modo de sacrificar a los individuos es extraño, pues no se han encontrado casos similares para momias de altura. Dos expediciones proporcionaron algunos datos sobre la dominación inca en esta región, a la que recién se ha comenzado a estudiar arqueológicamente.

Butehamun was one of the most famous scribes involved in the building of the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and a member of the most illustrious family of scribes there. Butehamun presided over the closure of the Valley and the workers’ village of Deir elMedina, and the move from building new tombs to the preserving and moving (some would say plundering) of the mummies left behind, marking the transition from the New Kingdom to the Third Intermediate Period, as Egypt splintered into what were essentially two realms. By studying the primary sources associated with Butehamun, including letters, reburial ‘dockets’, graffiti, the apparently unique decorations on Butehamun’s coffin, and the finds at his excavated house in Medinet Habu, this paper investigates what can be learned about Butehamun and the reburial project. Some of the sources seem to indicate he experienced some kind of religious crisis, which may have been brought on by feelings of guilt over his treatment of the royal mummies, two of whom were worshipped as gods in Deir el-Medina. / Butehamon var en av de mest kända av de skrivare som deltog i byggandet av de kungliga gravarna i Konungarnas dal. Han tillhörde en av de mest framstående skrivaresläkterna där. Butehamon övervakade stängningen av dalen och arbetarnas by Deir el-Medinah. Det var han som ansvarade för arbetet när man övergick från att bygga nya gravar till att flytta (vissa skulle säga plundra) de mumier som lämnades kvar till nya förvaringsplatser. Detta skede markerar övergången från det Nya Riket till den Tredje Mellanperioden, då Egypten sönderföll i två separata stater. Genom att studera de primära källor som rör Butehamon, bland annat brev, etiketter på mumier, graffiti, bilder och de högst ovanliga dekorationerna på Butehamons kista samt fynd från utgrävningarna av hans hus i Medinet Habu, undersöker denna uppsats vad man kan lära sig om Butehamon och projektet att flytta mumierna. Några av dessa källor tycks tyda på att han upplevde någon form av religiös kris, som kan ha utlösts av på skuldkänslor över hur han lät behandla de kungliga mumierna. Två av dessa kungligheter dyrkades som gudar i Deir el-Medinah och bilder på dem och delar av deras familj återfinns på Butehamons egen kista.

This study examines late Victorian and Edwardian British mummy fiction as a response to the manifold anxieties of the last twenty or so years of the nineteenth century up to the First World War in Great Britain. Mummy narratives of this time reveal the genre to be a very flexible one, partaking not only of the expected Gothic form, but also making fascinating stories out of invasion narratives and mystery fiction, all the while commenting on—and trying to solve—the various challenges of the day. After an introductory chapter that sets the stage for my project, I examine problems of empire and worries about a failing masculinity in the second and third chapters of my study. My fourth chapter looks at the epistemological competition of science and the occult as ways of knowing. I conclude my examination of mummy fiction with a look at silent mummy films as a way to look ahead at the changes that occurred when mummy narratives began to be told in visual form. The whole of the project is examined through a New Historical approach, as I attempt to delineate the place of mummy fiction within the broader discourses of the period. The picture that emerges from the study is one that depicts a worried nation concerned with scientific and social advancement while at the same time largely working to maintain the status quo. / Department of English

Morro 1-5 (Arica). Mummies and Complex Societies in South Central AndesThe comparative study of a series of 17 mummies from the Morro 1-5 site in Arica, Chile, is used to discuss the adaptation of the Chinchorro culture of the Archaic period in the South Central Andes. Issues related to the origin and distribution of cultural traits such as artificial mummification and its tipology of forms, as well as biological aspects such as craniometric and epigenetic traits, are íntegrated in the presentation of one of the oldest, most efficient and complex adaptations to the fragile environment of the desertic coast of the South Central Andes. / A partir del estudio comparativo de una serie de 17 momias del sitio Morro 1-5 de Arica, Chile, se discute la adaptación de la cultura Chinchorro del Periodo Arcaico en los Andes Sur Centrales. Aspectos referentes al origen y la distribución de rasgos culturales como el uso de la momificación artificial y su tipología de formas, y biológicos como rasgos epigenéticos y craniométricos, se integran a la presentación de uno de los procesos más antiguos, eficientes y complejos en uno de los ambientes más frágiles del desierto costeño de los Andes Sur Centrales.

This is a biography of the scribe Butehamun. A member of a well-known family who had long lived in the village of Deir el-Medina working on the tombs in the Valley of Kings, Butehamun’s coming of age saw invasion and civil war in Thebes, and the end to the making of new tombs in the Valley, as the New Kingdom came to an end. Instead he was given the task by the High Priests of Amun to remove and rewrap royal mummies and rebury them in secret caches, while plundering them of their gold and other valuables for the coffers of the priestly rulers of Thebes. In many respects Butehamun was a tomb raider in the service of the High Priests of Amun. That project seems to have been successful: The mummy of every single king from the 18th through 21st Dynasties that has been identified and was found in a tomb was found in the two caches KV 35 or TT 320 (with the sole exception of Tutankhamun). Butehamun is unusually well-documented, leaving behind many letters, labels on coffins he worked with, graffiti, and highly unusual imagery on his own coffins. Two houses he lived in have been excavated, one with inscriptions about his family. This paper seeks to create a biography of Butehamun through the study of these things he left behind. One seems to reflect he may have suffered a crisis of faith, others may display instead a deep piety for Amun and pride in the royal mummy reburial project he carried out in the service of the god. / Detta är en biografi över skrivaren Butehamon. Han kom från en mycket känd familj som i många generationer verkat i byn Deir e-Medinah och arbetat med gravarna i Konungarnas dal. Han växte upp under en tid av invasion och inbördeskrig i Thebe, vilket ledde till slutet på det Nya riket och på byggandet av nya gravar i Dalen. Butehamons uppdrag från guden Amuns överstepräster blev istället att svepa om mumierna med nytt linne och avlägsna allt guld och andra värdesaker. Mumierna begravdes i nya hemliga förvaringsplatser, medan värdesakerna gick till Thebes religiösa härskare. Man kan beskriva Butehamon som en gravplundrare i tjänst hos översteprästerna. Projektet tycks ha varit en succé: Varenda kung från 18:e till och med 21:a dynastierna vars mumie har identifierats och som hittades i en grav fanns i ett av de två gömställena, KV 35 eller TT 320 (med Tutankhamon som enda undantag). Butehamon är ovanligt väldokumenterad, med många brev, etiketter på likkistor han arbetat med, graffiti samt de mycket ovanliga bilderna på hans egna likkistor. Två hus där han bodde har grävts ut, ett med inskriptioner om hans familj. Denna avhandling är en biografi över Butehamon baserad på studier av de saker han lämnade efter sig. En av dem tyder på en andlig kris, medan andra tycks avspegla en djup fromhet och tro på Amun och stolthet över det mumieprojekt han ledde i gudens tjänst.