Very
Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine
by
Leslie S. Lee
Astonishing 3-D fly-through of mummy to be centerpiece of the exhibition.
Archaeology meets technology in Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine
which opens on Halloween (October 31, 2009) in Gallery 1 at the Legion of
Honor Museum in San Francisco. This
exhibition welcomes back to the Fine Arts Museums the mummy of Irethorrou, a
priest from an important family who lived in Akhmin, Egypt
around 500 BC, died at a young age and was buried over 2,500 years ago. The
mummy had been on long-term loan to the Haggin
Museum in Stockton, California
for the last 65 years. Using state of the art technology, the
exhibition reveals Irethorrou’s long held secrets through three-dimensional
computed tomography (CT) scans conducted by the Stanford Medical
School’s Department of
Radiology and presents a forensic portrait reconstructed by the Akhmin Mummy
Studies Consortium.
“What we’re trying to do is merge science,
culture, history, medicine and art. This exhibition gives us an opportunity
to incorporate modern techniques and procedures with one of the oldest
objects in our permanent collection,” describes Dr. Renee Dreyfus, curator
of ancient art and interpretation for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
 To the ancient
Egyptians, the preservation of the body was an important factor in attaining
and maintaining an afterlife. Mummification evolved from the concept of
preserving the body as a receptacle for the life force, which survives after
death. Although great numbers of mummies were exported as “curiosities,”
they have been an underestimated and underutilized resource that is finally
becoming recognized as a rich trove of preserved material. Many mummies from
the Egyptian city of Ahkmin
were found and exported at the end of the 19th century allowing scientists
to study them as a population. Today modern scientific examinations of these
relics are providing exciting new insights into the conditions under which
these individuals lived, bringing us even closer to an understanding of who
they were.
Very
Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine examines the ancient practice of
mummification through the lens of modern technology. While the mummy of
Irethorrou lies in its decorated coffin, visitors can learn how modern mummy
research is advanced through the use of high-resolution scanners. Images
produced by the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium and by scientists at
Stanford
Medical
School’s Department of Radiology reveal much
about Irethorrou and how he was prepared for eternity, including the
locations and textures of over a dozen magic amulets that were placed on his
body during the intricate wrapping process.
The exhibition will
include computer-generated models of the skulls of Irethorrou and of a close
relative Ankh-Wennefer, owned by the
Washington
State
History Museum
in Tacoma, Washington. This affords the rare opportunity
to reunite members of the same ancient family through forensic portraiture.
“Through this exhibition, we hope to create an historical reconstruction of
Irethorrou’s life as an ancient Egyptian,” explains Dr. Jonathan Elias,
director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium.
 Very Postmortem:
Mummies and Medicine includes other “cult of the dead” antiquities that
relate to the ancient Egyptian beliefs of death and the afterlife including
a beaded mummy mask from Dynasty 26 (7th century BC), an anthropoid coffin
from Dynasty 30 (4th century BC), a funerary shroud circa 350 A.D., amulets,
funerary furnishings and a selection of historical prints that highlight the
public’s ongoing fascination with mummies. Irethorrou is one of four human
mummies and one crocodile mummy in the Fine Arts Museums’ permanent
collection. These and other antiquities were among the museum’s earliest
gifts, having been given to the collection by founders M.H. de Young, Adolph
Spreckels and other donors.
This exhibition is organized by the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco with the cooperation of the
Akhmin Mummy Studies Consortium and the Stanford Medical School Department
of Radiology. The Legion of Honor displays a collection spanning more than
4,000 years of ancient and European art and houses the Achenbach Foundation
for Graphic Arts in a neoclassical building overlooking
Lincoln Park and the
Golden Gate Bridge.
www.legionofhonor.org
Images
courtesy of Sarah Hegmann of eHuman, and the Fine Arts Museum of San
Francisco.
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