Golden Mummies : Mummified body of a child

Golden Mummies

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Modelled in the form of an adult woman in miniature, the outer appearance of this young girl’s mummified body emulates those of adult women from the same site at which she was found: Hawara in the Faiyum. She appears both as a wealthy Roman in her gilded cartonnage mask, with its tight corkscrew curls, and with extensive Pharaonic scenes on her outer shroud. This is composed of (top to bottom) an elaborate broad collar, scenes of the performance of funerary liturgy and the purification of the deceased. Her feet are represented on a separate moulded plaster footcase, the underside of which carries images of bound enemies.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Remarking on her jewellery, the archaeologist Flinders Petrie described her rather haughtily as “too splendaciously got up.” The treatment of the eyes of the mask in quartz emulates the effect of life, especially in low light.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The body was CT-scanned at Manchester Children's Hospital on 30/4/13.</p>