SOME FURTHER POINTS FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE IDENTITY OF EGYPTIAN ROYAL MUMMIES

TABLES AND NOTES IN IDENTIFYING THE ROYAL MUMMIES

The series of extremely detailed tables in Identifying the Royal Mummies allow the mummies to be readily compared in terms of all aspects of their mummification, together with such features of their burial as the hand/arm pose, the various estimates of age-at-death etc. The crucial information on identity provided by inscriptions on mummy wrappings and coffins has been given very careful treatment so that the information surviving from the original burial can be distinguished from that added by later restorers. As many of the royal mummies, from both the TT320 and KV35 cache tombs, were provided with substitute coffins, the identity of the original coffin owner has also been distinguished from the later occupant. As far as possible, the exact ancient wording of the inscription has been adhered to.

Chapters on the mummification of the mysterious Unknown Man ‘E’, and theories for his identity, have now been updated and take account of the recent inspections which took place in conjunction with the National Geographic TV programme: Tales From the Tomb: Unknown Mummy (my own contributions to which were all filmed inside the royal cache tomb, courtesy of Professor Graefe), and the recent Atlantic Productions TV programme Secrets of Egypt: Screaming Man for National Geographic and Channel 5 (in which I had the role of ‘anchor’).

As should be clear, this is an extremely detailed and logical piece of work, but is presented in an accessible and readable style. The Notes are extensive and provide an additional resource for the serious researcher. The book has much greater value and relevance now that the Cairo Museum is conducting more tests on royal mummies in the hope of determining or confirming identity. It should be clear that all such investigations rest upon the weight of evidence, particularly inscriptional evidence, we already have, and this book provides a convenient reference to the accumulated data. The illustrations accompanying the text present a reasonably comprehensive coverage of the royal mummies and coffins currently known. Readers of Identifying the Royal Mummies will appreciate why this work has taken me such a long time!

ARTICLES IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS 

A fresh look at the great difficulty even leading experts have in estimating the age-at-death of mummies and skeletal remains with any degree of accuracy has been submitted to KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. Presented under the title of ‘The King is Dead. How Long Lived the King’ this includes some new evidence and will hopefully appear in the Spring 2010 issue.

The discussion, as to how various mummies have come to be identified as the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, appeared in extended form in my article ‘The Burial of Hatshepsut’ for the inaugural issue of The Heritage of Egypt, January 2008.

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

The second section of Refugees for Eternity, slated for release late 2009, is Part One, Finding the Pharaohs. This traces the discovery of royal tombs and royal mummies in the modern era, from Belzoni through to Tutankhamun, and on to KV63 and the recent excavations in the Valley of the Kings. The topic is one that has been covered superficially in many general books on Ancient Egypt, as well as in more authoritative works, but Finding the Pharaohs explores the evidence in much greater depth – offering many new and valuable insights as to what actually happened – whilst being entertaining and easy to read. a sample chapter from Finding the Pharaohs will appear in the Spring issue of The Heritage of Egypt. This discusses the evidence for royal burials at Amarna and is entitled: ‘The Tomb of Akheanten and the Golden Ring of Nefertiti’.

In particular, the reader is now able to benefit from the completion of the re-clearance work, by the combined German/Russian mission (1998-2005), of the Royal Cache tomb (TT320) where so many of the famous royal mummies were discovered. I published some preliminary conclusions, with photographs, in the Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum 10 (2005), 9-25; and then developed and expanded this into nine separate sections. Four of these are due to appear as Chapter One of the official publication of the Mission during 2010: ‘Background to the Discovery’, ‘Brugsch and the Discovery of the Cache’; ‘Analysis of Sources’; and ‘Discovery of the Tomb by the Abd er Rassul Brothers’. These sections have all been revised for inclusion in Finding the Pharaohs, as have those on the ‘Structure of the Tomb’ and ‘The Layout of Coffins within the Cache’. Further sections on the evidence for ‘Later Entries to the Tomb’ and ‘The K3y of Inhapy’ will be updated for inclusion in Part Three: Clues From the Caches shortly.

I am now pleased to have some more specific evidence to answer the question of when and how the Abd er Rassul brothers first discovered the TT320 royal cache tomb. Some of these points have briefly been touched upon in recent articles where I show that a mummy from the Niagara Falls Museum cannot have come from the Royal Cache tomb in 1861, and cannot be Ramesses I. See, Dylan Bickerstaffe, ‘The (Royal) Mummy Returns…but is he Ramesses I?’, Ancient Egypt 6.2 (October/November 2005), 42-48; and a more detailed discussion of the evidence, including probable identities for the mummy: Dylan Bickerstaffe, ‘Examining the Mystery of the Niagara Falls Mummy. Was he from the Royal Mummies Cache? And is he Ramesses I?’ KMT 17.4 (Winter 2006-07), 26-34. A letter summarising my points appeared in ‘Readers’ Forum’, KMT 18.3 (Fall 2007), 6-7. The relevant chapter in Finding the Pharaohs, is still more thorough and up to date.

Finding the Pharaohs also contains the first thorough account of the work of Victor Loret in the Valley of the Kings since the recent rediscovery of his notes and diaries. Apart from his discovery of the second cache of royal mummies in tomb KV35, the excavation of the tombs of Thutmose III, Maiherpri, Thutmose I etc. are examined in detail. Fresh insights are also provided in chapters such as: ‘The Gate of the Priests: The Bab el Gusus Tomb’, ‘The Lost Queens of the Mountain’, and ‘Winlock and Deir el Bahari’. ‘The Tombseekers’, incorporates some research into the various sarcophagi collected from Theban tombs by Giovanni Belzoni between 1816 and 1818, which I presented in summary form in an article: ‘Strong Man – Wrong Tomb: the problem of Belzoni’s Sarcophagi’, in Ancient Egypt 6.6 (June/July 2006), 22-30; and to the British Egyptology Congress at Cambridge in 2005.

Another chapter in the book has appeared as an article: Dylan Bickerstaffe, ‘Embalming Caches in the Valley of the Kings,’ KMT 18.2 (Summer 2007), 46-53. This reveals that the tomb recently discovered in the Valley of the Kings, KV63, is certainly an embalming cache, and shows how a study of these caches can reveal clues to the locations of the associated tombs.

A great deal has been completed in Part Two of Refugees for Eternity, The Rise and Fall of the Theban Royal House and Necropolis, which looks at the development of royal tombs at Thebes, the various political trends that led up to their eventual robbery at the end of the New Kingdom, and the subsequent restoration of royal mummies by the priesthood of Amun in the early Twenty-First dynasty. A very large article, ‘The Tomb-robbers of No-Amun’, concerning the political infighting of high officials concealed in the court records of robberies in the reign of Ramesses IX, has been revised for inclusion in the book. An historical overview: ‘Coups, Conspiracies and Civil War: The True History of Ancient Egypt’, gives a different perspective on Egyptian history, with some of the greatest rulers shown to have been of dubious legitimacy. The following chapter takes up the story again with the fascinating evidence for ‘The Harem Conspiracy Against Ramesses III’ in the early Twentieth Dynasty.
Both ‘The Tomb-robbers’ and ‘The Harem Conspiracy’ are available as Talks.

Aside from topics closely related to the royal mummies, two articles of mine appeared in KMT during 2008: ‘Death in the Nile. The Birth of Egypt’s Last God’, KMT 19.2 (Summer 2008); and ‘The Fury of Amen. The Cursed Play in the Valley of the Queens’, KMT 19.3 (Fall 2008). A revised version of the first of these will also be run in Ancient Egypt magazine (9.3, No. 52) in late January 2009.

The Egyptian Labyrinth: A Middle Kingdom Enigma
Copies of my preliminary work on this enigmatic structure, dating to the end of the Middle Kingdom, have unfortunately now sold out. An updated version is intended for release in the near future.

The Exodus
Eight sections of this work appeared in the AEMES Journal and have been supplemented by another piece on the Ark of the Covenant, which appeared in 2006. This work may be developed for publication at some point.

February 2010.

SAMPLE ARTICLES. Some short articles on historical topics will be provided on this site as examples of my work from time to time.