Piece Of Mummy Cartonnage

From card: "Presented to the National Institute and later transferred to the Smithsonian Inst.. Second entry in catalogue showing Cat. No. 8276. Written up in "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge", 1870, vol. 16, article V, by Charles Pickering, "On the Gliddon Mummy Case in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution." Dr. John D. Cooney, Brooklyn Mus. says "... it is probably not earlier than the 26th Dyn. (c. 600 B.C.)" -4/21/1939. R. S. Bianchi, Brooklyn Museum, notes "nearest parallels are from 4th Cent. B.C. and belong to the Petosiris family. See also Jean Yoyote, Treasures of the Pharoahs (Geneva, [Skira], 1968, p.. 206-211. Name on fgt. shows it is from Tomb of Eshor." On exhibit, Hall 26, 1976, where exhibit label identifies as fragment of mummy wrapping, ca. 300-200 B.C.. History of collection card indicates that the Charles Pickering article referenced above says that collector Gliddon divided the object into 3 parts, the first part now at the Smithsonian, the second presented to the Naval Lyceum of Brooklyn, and the third presented to a "Mrs. Ward, of New York." 1978 NMNH slide set caption: "Mummy cartonage (section), wooden with linen cover, painted with hieroglyphs, naturalistic, Egyptian, late period?" See possibly related artifacts also collected by Gliddon under Accession #66A00078.

Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist Betsy Bryan interprets: Isis on left, Nephthys on right. Bits and pieces of spells represented. Reads vertically so each register cut off. Also retrograde (R to L).

From NMNH Exhibit Hall "Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt" label for this artifact, 2011: Fragment of cartonnage (or papier mâché) coffin belonging to Nesihor, 664-525 B.C. Images of Isis and Nephthys - sisters of Osiris who put his body back together after he was killed - almost always appear with Osiris. The goddesses occur on both sides of this coffin fragment, and the deceased asks for their protection in the accompanying text.

See National Institute for the Promotion of Science. 1841[-46]. Bulletin of the proceedings of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, pp. 230-232, which includes a letter from George R. Gliddon dated April 14, 1842, which includes a list of the objects presented by Gliddon to the National Institute. This object is probably the one listed there on p. 231 as "One piece of a beautiful mummy case I found the Arabs about to burn at Saccara. I was not in time to save the rest, beyond half the cover."

See "The Gliddon Mummy Case: Intersections Past and Present" by Lana Troy, Arctic Studies Center Newsletter No. 30, May 2023, pp. 48-51. https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/116560 . A pdf copy is attached to this record. Lana Troy notes that: "The fragment [collected by Gliddon] was cut into three pieces and distributed among the National Institute [this piece later became A1415-0], the Naval Lyceum of Brooklyn, and a Mrs. Ward of New York. ... After the dissolution of the Lyceum in 1888, the museum inventory was passed to the U. S. Naval Academy Museum (USNAM) in Annapolis [USNAM 1892.001.152] ... . The USNAM piece joins with A1415-0 along the latter's upper edge, extending the text columns. The uppermost section, presumably the piece given to Mrs. Ward, is still missing".

5 Jun 2025

1