Free Resurrecting Pompeii by Estelle Lazer Page B

French tourists. He recorded some of the amulets that he found but neglected to discuss any other finds or make any observations about the mummy itself. This was common practice during the ensuing centuries, though there were some exceptions. In 1718, for example, an apothecary by the name of Herzog unwrapped a mummy and published a number of his observations. He also ground the mummy up and sold the powder as a novel way of financing this research. The famous physical anthropologist and physician Blumenbach unwrapped a number of mummies in England during the 1790s. His work involved mummies from both private and public collections. One of his key discoveries was that a substantial number of these mummies were fakes. The fakery was not only modern. Animals, single bones or rags bound up to give the appearance of mummi
fi
ed children, were occasionally used to construct mummies in antiquity.
    The first investigation that could really be described as scientific was undertaken in 1828 on the so-called ‘Leeds Mummy’. Chemical analysis was attempted and, though there were no conclusive results, it marked a shift in attitude and provided a basis for a more scientific approach to future mummy unwrappings. Belzoni famously unwrapped some mummies for the public with the assistance of one Thomas Pettigrew. Pettigrew then moved on to unwrap mummies on his own. To develop his professional skills, Pettigrew purchased a few mummies that he unwrapped in private where he could take notes about his observations and conclusions. He then commenced public unwrapping to audiences who paid for the privilege of viewing these spectacles. The first of these took place in the lecture theatre of Charing Cross Hospital in 1833. Amongst the audience were antiquarians, Egyptologists, artists, peers, royalty, diplomats, physicians, army officers and anyone from the great unwashed who could afford the admission price. These were sell-out events, with people being turned away at the door. These ethically questionable exercises, nonetheless, did yield valuable information about the various types of mummies and methods of mummification. In 1834, Pettigrew published his History of Egyptian Mummies , one of the first academic publications on the subject. 6
Mummies for fun and profit
    Another point of divergence with Pompeii is the industry that developed around mummies. While some unscrupulous people collected human remains from Pompeii as souvenirs, they did not appear to be considered of any value outside a private context. The situation was quite different in Egypt where the mummy trade formed part of the nineteenth century economy. The precedent for the mummy industry was its popularity as a drug and the use of mummy for medicinal purposes continued into the nineteenth century. A huge number of mummies found their way to Europe to satisfy the demand, despite the fact that this trade was not sanctioned by the Egyptian authorities.
    Apart from the above-mentioned mummies that were exported for unwrappings, they were also used for various, and sometimes unexpected, purposes. They were, for example, used in the manufacture of the artist’s oil paint known as Mummy Brown. It has been claimed that cat mummies were used as ballast in ships and then when they reached their European destination they served as fertilizer until the public sensibility created enough pressure to stop this trade. They were also traded as curios and most museums that were in existence in the nineteenth century would have housed at least one mummy, or portions of mummies, in their collection. There is an apocryphal story of the use of mummy wrappings for the manufacture of the brown paper used by butchers and grocers in North America. The paper was ostensibly used for wrapping produce until the industry was put to a halt by a cholera outbreak that was thought to have originated in the mummification by-product.
    The mummy industry was not merely the realm of insensitive Europeans. In