[MUSIC] Welcome to Penn Museum's artifact lab, and also welcome to Molly Gleeson, who is in charge of this lab. >> Thank you David. [LAUGH] >> In front of us today is another individual I'd like to introduce you to, and the name is And that name actually means the Nubian in ancient Egyptian. And it doesn't necessarily always hold that the person involved is from that country, which was South of Egypt. Sometimes it just, at least in the period where this mummy comes from, could actually just be a regular name and not necessarily designation. And we've had it now in the artifact lab for Molly to take a look at. And see from the various things that she can do. Perhaps she can tell us a little bit more about the individual who's under the wrappings, and has actually been on exhibit for at least almost half a century. So Molly, tell me a little bit more that I didn't know. >> [LAUGH] I'm not sure what you didn't know. But I'll tell you what I do know. This mummy was on exhibit in our Mummy Exhibit until recently. We had noticed some deterioration of the linen wrappings on the outer shroud. Which were likely a result of handling when the mummy was first put in the case. This is a mummy that is over 3000 years old, and the linen is very fragile. And so we didn't like that deterioration, seeing that while it's on display. So we removed the mummy from exhibit. Brought him into the conservation lab for examination and treatment. The treatment that I did on this mummy really just focused on outer wrappings. I didn’t work the human remains at all. But it just focused on mending the linen, and mostly this outer shroud. And then one final step that we did before we'll return him to exhibit next week, actually, is that we x-rayed the mummy. And that can tell us information about how old this person was. And it turns out this is definitely a man, that's been confirmed. >> That's good, because we have had that in the past where our mummy which we thought was a man turns out to be a woman. >> That's right, so it's always good to double check these things. And so certainly, this is a man. He was probably around the age of 30 when he died based on the condition of his bones and teeth. And this is information that our physical anthropologist really specializes in and was able to tell us. And one interesting thing is that his arms are crossed over his chest and I've heard that that could indicate royalty. >> It can, it doesn't always mean that that's the case, but in many cases that is actually turns out to be true. If that were the case here, perhaps something might show up in terms of the amulets. Or If we take a look at the coffin, it might show up in terms of the titles and as far as I know that's not the case. But maybe we need to do more internal studies perhaps through a CT scan. >> Right, yeah, definitely CT scanning would show us, give us better resolution. because one interesting thing is, his remains actually, while they appear to be very well packaged from the outside, are kind of jumbled up inside. He has teeth in his brain cavity and his ribs and vertebrae are out of place, and why that would be, is still a little bit of a mystery. So CT scanning might be able to help better resolve what we're seeing in those areas and when that damage could've happened. >> Sometimes we do find that the people who were responsible for the mummification were not as careful as you are. >> [LAUGH] >> And we do know that sometimes, in the animal mummies, what appears to be a crocodile turns out to be an Ibis. And sometimes there's more than one when we expect only one. And sometimes there's only one when we expect more than that. So, it's always interesting to do these type of tests to allow us to learn even more. I'm curious though because the wrapping and the figure itself seems to be pretty hefty. And I know that at certain time periods it was more wrapping that was used. >> Yes. >> Was there a lot of wrapping, for example, Tutankhamen there were hundreds of yards of material. >> Yeah, I don't know how it translates to yards, although I guess we could work that out. I've been able to count where the damage is around the feet. Over 20 layers of linen wrapped around this mummy. >> That's very good, yeah. >> Yeah, and he's also extremely heavy. We needed six people to remove him from exhibit. So one thing that we did as part of the treatment was also to make this support board, so that will protect this mummy into the future when we do have to handle him or put him back on display.
