Nerlich at nal. 2020_An unusual ancient Egyptian mummy skull within a Roman period stucco head_AeP VI
Nerlich, Andreas G.1 – Panzer, Stephanie2 – Schneider, Philipp3 – Lehn, Christine4 – Peschel, Oliver4 – Hamann, Christian5 – Bicker, Roxane6 – Schoske, Sylvia6
1 Institut für Pathologie and Klinik für Radiologische Diagnostik, Klinikum München-Bogenhausen
3 Klinik für Radiologische Diagnostik, Klinikum München-Bogenhausen
2 Abteilung Radiologie, Unfallklinik Murnau und PMU Salzburg
4 Institut für Rechtsmedizin der LMU München
5 Leibniz-Labor für Altersbestimmung und Isotopenforschung, CAU Kiel
6 Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, München, Germany
An unusual ancient Egyptian mummy skull within a Roman period stucco head
in: Hedvig Győry (ed.), Aegyptus et Pannonia VI, Acta Symposii anno 2019, Health and Life in Ancient Egypt. Mummies in Focus. Proceedings of the Conference held 27-29th August 2019, Budapest.
Budapest: The Ancient Egyptian Committee of the Hungarian-Egyptian Friendship Society (MEBT ÓEB) 2020, 47-53.
ISBN 978-615-01-0361-7.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71067/AePVI-2020-47-53
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Abtsract:
The Bavarian State Collection for Egyptian Art houses an unusual stucco head that has roughly been dated into the Roman Imperial Period, without known provenance. A CT-scan revealed inside the stucco cover an adult human skull consisting of a complete calvarium including face bones and the maxilla, but a complete absence of the mandible and any cervical bones. The skull is covered by a brown textile surface, eye balls are formed of fabric and the ethmoidal plate is perforated showing the typical features of ancient Egyptian embalming. The skull reveals male facial traits, open cranial sutures and minimal tooth wear suggesting young adult age of 20 – 30 years. Considerably after death the maxilla must have been separated from the mandible under dry conditions since several tooth crowns of the right maxilla are broken and sheared off laterally. Through the actual neck opening we obtained small tissue samples from the skull base, the adjacent linen cover and also more loosely woven linen between the “inner” linen and the stucco surface which were all used for radiocarbon dating. This indicates an age of the human material between 190 and 38 BC, of the inner linen between 45 BC and 57 AD and the outer linen between 130 and 244 AD. Accordingly, the skull must have been prepared around 45 – 25 BC; the mummy has then been “reused” c. 170 to 280 years later. Stable isotope analyses on the skull bone further indicate a balanced diet well compatible with Egyptian climate influence suggesting advanced social level. Although we have no evidence for any specific historically identified individual we believe that this must have been a person of Ptolemaic Egypt (dying around 40 BC) that was “important” enough to have his skull preserved for long time by the stucco cover.