23-MT-2021_Turin, University Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAET), Egyptian human mummy and wooden headrest S. 16731

Facilitated description:

 

The Egyptian mummy is lying on its side.
The mummy is kept at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Turin.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the mummy in 2021.
Thanks to the collaboration with the Juventus medical center, scientists have done scientific analysis to see inside the mummy. In this way they understood the age and sex of the mummy. 
The restorers removed the dirt from the surface with a small vacuum cleaner and a tool that emits laser beams.  They reinforced the damaged fabric parts by inserting transparent silk. They stitched up the detached fragments.
After restoration, the mummy was exhibited at the exhibition ‘The unveiled man. Studies and restoration of a 4,500-year-old Egyptian mummy" at Palazzo Mathis, Bra (2021). 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

Restoration

The Egyptian mummy in a curled position comes from the northern necropolis of Gebelein (Upper Egypt), explored in 1920 by the Italian Archaeological Mission (MAI) led by Giovanni Marro, doctor, anthropologist and founder of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Turin.
The mummy with the limbs and the body blindfolded and the face painted on the bandages, is among the oldest mummies in the Egyptian collection of the MAET and represents a rarity for the state of conservation of the bandages and the shroud that surround it. The restoration project was carried out in collaboration with the anthropologists of the University of Turin and the MAET and with the Egyptological direction of the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan City of Turin.
The aim of the mummy’s conservation recovery project was to investigate its conservation history, to respect the original materials and to ensure that the new materials and techniques used for the restoration work were compatible with the original materials.
The restoration was carried out with a view to minimal intervention: After removal of foreign deposits on the surface, tissue cleaning was carried out using a combined methodology (micro-aspiration and laser cleaning for larger deposits). In this way it was possible to return the details of the painted face. Consolidations of the torn fabric parts with transparent silk support were then carried out. At this stage it was also possible to relocate some fragments. 

Thanks to the collaboration with the JŪMedical (Juventus Medical Centre) the interior of the find was visualized with computed tomography (CT). 
After the restoration the mummy was exhibited at the exhibition The man unveiled. Study and restoration of a 4,500-year-old Egyptian mummy (Palazzo Mathis in Bra, 2 September - 12 December 2021) with a project funded by the CRC Foundation.