Monday, April 16, 2007

Wayne County Historical Museum mummy

"There are still mysteries, but Bonnie M. Sampsell has been a super sleuth, helping the Wayne County Historical Museum answer many questions about its mummy and its Egyptian collection. Richmond native Sampsell, who now lives in Chapel Hill, N.C., started putting her passion for Egyptology to work for the museum last summer. She began cataloging the artifacts, researching the collection and updating the mummy's display. . . . Many of the questions centered on the mummy -- a favorite of visiting school children for years. Museum founder Julia Meek Gaar bought the mummy during a 1929 visit to Cairo, Egypt. She was told the mummy had been on exhibition in a curio store there for 40 years before the shop owner decided to sell it to her.
Sampsell used X-rays taken of the mummy in 1974 and 2000, a CAT scan done in 2000, along with other photographs and information to seek answers during her own recent trip to Cairo.
The mummy has long been believed to be a priestess because of the markings on the sarcophagus, but the expert in Egyptian skeletons that Sampsell consulted in Cairo believes the mummy is a man. The skull, she said, appears to be that of a male age 30 to 35, and the X-rayed skeleton also appears to be a male of the same age."
See the above page for the full story.

Bonnie Sampsell is the author of the excellent A Traveler's Guide to the Geology of Egypt, published by the AUC. For details of this very useful resource, see the AUC website at:

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