DOI article:
Smith, Grafton Elliot: A contribution to the study of mummification in Egypt: with special reference to the measures adopted during the time of the 21st dynasty for moulding the form of the body
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11325#0056
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same reason, i. e., in order to make the body complète, not only in
form but also in substance, that the viscera, which, in other times,
were placed in Canopic Jars apart from the body, were replaced
in the body of the mummy in the 21 st dynasty.
In support of the hypothesis that the body was intended to
take the place of the statue, there is the interesting fact that at
this time—and, so far as I can ascertain, at no other period—the
body was painted like the statues of the earlier dynasties.
The female bodies were painted with a mixture identified by
Dr. Schmidt as chrome yellow and gum, i. e., with the same mate-
rials which M. Maspero has mentioned as having been used for
painting female statues.1
The bodies of the men were painted either red, rose-colour or
more usually a dull reddish or yellowish brown. In many cases
the brown paint when moistened and rubbed off on cotton wool
becomes light yellow, indistinguishable from that used on the
women's bodies. This fact, at first very puzzling, is interesting
in view of M. Maspero's statement that "at Sakkarah under the
5th Dynasty, and at Abu Simbel, under the 19th Dynasty
we find men with skins as yellow as those of the women ; while
in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos, about the time of Thothmes
IV and Horemheb, there occur figures with flesh-tints of rose-
colour" (op. cit., pp. 204, 205).
i G, Maspero, Manual of Egyptian Archaeology, translatée! by Amelia B. Edwards,
London 1895, p. 203.
same reason, i. e., in order to make the body complète, not only in
form but also in substance, that the viscera, which, in other times,
were placed in Canopic Jars apart from the body, were replaced
in the body of the mummy in the 21 st dynasty.
In support of the hypothesis that the body was intended to
take the place of the statue, there is the interesting fact that at
this time—and, so far as I can ascertain, at no other period—the
body was painted like the statues of the earlier dynasties.
The female bodies were painted with a mixture identified by
Dr. Schmidt as chrome yellow and gum, i. e., with the same mate-
rials which M. Maspero has mentioned as having been used for
painting female statues.1
The bodies of the men were painted either red, rose-colour or
more usually a dull reddish or yellowish brown. In many cases
the brown paint when moistened and rubbed off on cotton wool
becomes light yellow, indistinguishable from that used on the
women's bodies. This fact, at first very puzzling, is interesting
in view of M. Maspero's statement that "at Sakkarah under the
5th Dynasty, and at Abu Simbel, under the 19th Dynasty
we find men with skins as yellow as those of the women ; while
in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos, about the time of Thothmes
IV and Horemheb, there occur figures with flesh-tints of rose-
colour" (op. cit., pp. 204, 205).
i G, Maspero, Manual of Egyptian Archaeology, translatée! by Amelia B. Edwards,
London 1895, p. 203.