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Wilfred/a's many mysteries
Last week, we moved our mummy Wilfred/a from the Artifact Lab down to our new digital x-ray lab to capture some x-ray images and hopefully get to the bottom of the male/female debate.
Above is an overall after treatment image of Wilfred/a. The goal of the treatment was to get this mummy out of the original packing materials, to assess and document the remains, and to house them in a way that they can safely be moved to our x-ray room for imaging, and then returned to storage. If plans are made to exhibit Wilfred/a in the future, further treatment can be carried out at that point, but for now, this mummy is stabilized and will be much more accessible for research.
We were excited to x-ray Wilfred/a's remains, but while we are used to x-raying ceramics, wooden artifacts, metals, and other types of cultural materials, x-raying human remains is not something that any of us in the conservation department specialize in, so we brought in some experts to help us with this task: Dr. Janet Monge, Keeper and Curator-in-Charge of the Museum's Physical Anthropology Section, and Dr. Morrie Kricun, Emeritus Professor of Radiology, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, it was Dr. Monge and Dr. Kricun's initial examination of Wilfred/a's remains and some old 1932 x-ray radiographs that made us think that this mummy may be female, rather than male.
With the assistance of Dr. Monge and Dr. Kricun, Conservator Tessa de Alarcon and I captured a complete sets of x-ray images of Wilfred/a. And the really cool thing about having a digital system is that we can capture the images in seconds, and see the results immediately. While full interpretation of the images is underway, I will share a couple of the findings that are quite interesting.
First, let's clear up the debate and start addressing this mummy by the appropriate pronoun. This mummy is female, and therefore we'll call her Wilfreda from now on (or until someone proposes a new, more appropriate name). Determining that Wilfreda is female was possible by a thorough examination of her pelvis. There are a few other possibly very cool findings related to the fact that she's female, but I'm going to wait on the full interpretation before sharing any other details about this on the blog.
Secondly, we knew that Wilfreda's head was missing, but what we didn't realize was this:
Her feet are missing! From the outside, it is obvious that the wrappings around the feet were disturbed at some point, but it wasn't possible to see until these x-rays were taken that the feet are totally gone. In this next image, which we captured to better see the linen wrappings, you can clearly see where the feet would have been:
The weird thing about this is that her feet were there when the 1932 x-rays were taken:
Where have her feet gone? We don't know. This is now a new mystery.
Just in case any of you are following this blog very closely, and are wondering if the feet could have been lost somewhere inside the old crate (pictured below), the answer is no, but some other things of interest did turn up in there.
Buried in the old padding of the crate, we found the following:
- a Keuffel & Esser Co. 1903 Catalog of drawing materials and surveying instruments
- 4 tickets that say: "Only for School Children – Not Transferable. Barakat's Lecture, on BIBLE LANDS, illustrated by ancient curiosities used 1800 years ago, and costumes worn 4000 years ago. ADMIT ____ who will Bring this and Five cents." (I've neglected to write about him on the blog but Wilfreda was originally in the possession of Professor Elias Barakat, who, for about a decade, traveled around the US lecturing about the ancient world, with Wilfreda as one of his "curiosities." His wife donated Wilfreda to the museum in 1911.)
- Rubber stamps, for printing announcements, etc., one of them with Barakat's name
- small wooden dowels
- a piece of cartonnage
- fragments of wood, textile, paper, plant materials, seeds.
Leave it to Wilfreda to keep a few surprises from us. We'll post more about the x-ray interpretations once we know more, and continue to try to put the pieces of these mysteries together.
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