Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/381

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NOTES UPON AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY. 273 ver}^ accurate examination of the churches, and a close inquiry into local or conditional causes, to establish the fact. It may be hoped that the interesting subject of inquiry, prosecuted by one of the local Secretaries of the Institute in Sussex, the Rev. Arthur Hussey, whose work will shortly be published, may throw valuable light upon questions of this nature, in regard to the ancient ecclesiastical remains in the south- eastern district of England.* SPENCER HALL. NOTES UPON A MUMMY OF THE AGE OF THE XXVI. EGYPTIAN DYNASTY. Having been asked by the Earl of Londesborough to deliver a lecture on the occasion of opening a mummy, obtained by Mr. Arden in sepulchres of Gournah, the results of the examina- tion were of so interesting a character, that I have thought a brief notice would prove acceptable to many readers of the Journal. On the 10th of June, after giving a short precis on the general subject of embalming and mummies, I pro- ceeded, assisted by several gentlemen, to unroll the body in question. Mr. Arden, Dr. Lee, Mr. Bonomi, Mr. Powel, and Mr. Forster, R. N., particularly assisted in the operation. The mummy was encased in what is technically called a " cartonage," consisting of several folds of linen glued to- gether by some viscous substance, and then covered with a remarkably smooth and thin layer of stucco, on which had been neatly painted certain religious subjects. At the foot was a board of sycomore wood, which had been attached to the cartonage by two wooden pegs obliquely driven through it. The outside was coloured yellow. The cartonage itself was moulded in the shape of the mummied body before, and with a flat upright plinth behind, the base terminating in a square pedestal, like a statue, and which calls to mind the setting upright of the bodies in order to perform the funeral masses. In the present case the cartonage was remarkably thick, and composed of at least 20 layers of linen, measuring about inch thick. The whole measured

  • "Comparative Hist, of tho Churtlics One vol. fivo. Lornlon. J. Russell Smith,

in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, with Notes This useful work, the result of long inves- on their Architecture, Sepulchral Memo- tigation, is now in the press, rials, &e." to be published by subsci'iption. VOL. VII.