ABSTRACT
XX lIND DYNASTY TO THE DECLINE broken pottery. In another case, where the outer wrappings were very carefully applied, the "body" was a collection of bones made up of parts of no less than three individuals. The mummy, exteriorly, was that of a child, but when opened it was found to have the skull of an adult woman, an artificial neck, some of the lumbar vertebrre, a complete set of ribs, but only one side of the pelvis. There was a female femur and tibia but articulated to the fibula of a large muscular man. The other leg had a male femur, put upside down, but articulated to it was another male fibula from a different skeleton. A number of similar cases were found and are described in the Nubian report already cited (pp. 218-215).1 Several mummies had false hands, their own hands having decomposed, and the carpal bones having been thrown into the body-cavity. Many of these" faked" mummies were strengthened by sticks, or the mid-ribs of palm leaves. In several cases the stick carried all the weight and was thrust through the perineum upwards, and, projecting through the neck, transfixed the skull by the foramen magnum. In one case the head was affixed to the trunk and the supporting stick by an elaborate lacing of bandages passing through the angles of the mouth and over the ears. (Fig. 41.) 2
In the Roman period mummification still further deteriorated. The bodies so far examined seem to prove that they were simply treated with hot bitumen, or a mixture of resin and pitch. They are so thickly coated with this material that it is impossible to say whether evisceration or the removal of the brain was practised. The embalmer's sole object seems to have been a summary treatment of the body to prevent decay in order to leave him free to develop the greater elaboration of the external wrappings, which
reaches its greatest development in the Roman period when the external mummy was lavishly bedecked and a painted portrait of the deceased affixed to the head. Coffins and wrappings are separately dealt with in a later chapter, so no further reference will be made to them here.1
