Mummy Bandages

Folded linen cloth with patterned edge of different coloured threads, from a mummified body removed from the coffins of Ditamunpaseneb, daughter of Yufa, on 30th March 1903 and unwrapped before an audience at the Liverpool Free Public Museums (now World Museum) by museum director Henry Ogg Forbes. Cuttings of the bandages were given out to the audience; one was returned to the museum by donation in 1987 (accession number 1987.75). Bundles of mummy bandages were tied with string and pinned with a number ticket; at least three have hieroglyphic inscriptions painted in black on the linen. According to the Museum Annual Report for 1903 Henry Ogg Forbes, gave a lecture and unwrapped a mummy: “At the lecture of the 30th, the mummy of a lady named Auf-aa of the XXVI. Dynasty (660-590BC) was unwrapped before the audience to illustrate his lecture on ‘The Mummy’. The face was found in a remarkable state of preservation, the hands crossed upon the breast, but the flesh had apparently been removed from the limbs before enswathement of the body. The beautifully manufactured cloth in which it was wrapped, however, had been used for another mummy at a much earlier date. Presented by the 8th Earl of Denbigh and 7th Earl of Desmond - the donation included inner and outer coffins and a mummified body - and some other items including a stela and scarab.