The life and death of Mummy Brown
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By Philip McCouat
Mummy Brown was a remarkable pigment that had its origins in ancient Egypt and became popular in European painting from about the sixteenth century. To many people’s surprise, shock, or even disgust, it was exactly what its name implied – a rich brown pigment made primarily from the flesh of mummies. |
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The story of its rise and eventual fall from grace is a strange one, and to fully understand it we must first appreciate the extraordinary way in which Egyptian mummies came to be used – and abused – in the Christian West.
A case of mistaken identity
Egyptian mummies – the ceremonially-embalmed bodies of deceased humans or animals – have been traced back some 5,000 years, but they only started becoming available in Europe in medieval times, primarily as a result of a belief in their medicinal qualities [1]. This belief appears to have been based loosely on the ancient Greeks’ medical use of pitch, or bitumen, a substance which oozed from the earth in Persia and various other places in the Middle East [2]. As recorded by historians such as Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides, this substance was used for the treatment of an extraordinary variety of medical complaints, ranging from toothaches to dysentery.
How the medical reputation of bitumen somehow got associated with preserved Egyptian bodies is a matter of some conjecture. The general view, based partly on the 12th century writings of Abd' el-Latif [3], is that the blackened appearance of some of the bodies, which was due to the aging of the embalming materials, was erroneously attributed to the use of bitumen being used to soak the bodies and their shrouds [4]. It was therefore believed that these bodies would provide a much needed alternative supply of that increasingly-scarce substance. Indeed, Latif himself claimed that the substance “found in the hollows of corpses in Egypt differs but immaterially” from the original bitumen “and where any difficulty arises in procuring the latter, may be substituted in its stead”[5].
As the Persian word for bitumen was mum or mumiya [6], variants of these words came to be applied to the bitumen that supposedly soaked the shrouded corpses. Ultimately, these words began being applied to the preserved bodies themselves, thus accounting for the name “mummy” which has become familiar to us today [7].
How the medical reputation of bitumen somehow got associated with preserved Egyptian bodies is a matter of some conjecture. The general view, based partly on the 12th century writings of Abd' el-Latif [3], is that the blackened appearance of some of the bodies, which was due to the aging of the embalming materials, was erroneously attributed to the use of bitumen being used to soak the bodies and their shrouds [4]. It was therefore believed that these bodies would provide a much needed alternative supply of that increasingly-scarce substance. Indeed, Latif himself claimed that the substance “found in the hollows of corpses in Egypt differs but immaterially” from the original bitumen “and where any difficulty arises in procuring the latter, may be substituted in its stead”[5].
As the Persian word for bitumen was mum or mumiya [6], variants of these words came to be applied to the bitumen that supposedly soaked the shrouded corpses. Ultimately, these words began being applied to the preserved bodies themselves, thus accounting for the name “mummy” which has become familiar to us today [7].
The mummy trade
By the 16th century, despite legal restrictions, exporting mummies from Egypt to Europe to be ground up and used as “medicine” was big business – what Fagan describes as “a flourishing trade in human flesh”[8]. Collection and distribution businesses were established and, since large profits were to be made, many foreigners – English, Spanish, French, German and others – began to trade in mummies, exporting complete bodies or packages of fragmented tissue from Cairo and Alexandria [9]. In his History of Egyptian Mummies, Thomas Pettigrew commented, “No sooner was it credited that mummy constituted an article of value in the practice of medicine than many speculators embarked in the trade; the tombs were sacked, and as many mummies as could be obtained were broken into pieces for the purpose of sale”[10]. Both locals and visitors dug up tombs and transported mummy to Cairo, where, as recorded by Abdel Latif, “it is sold for a trifle. For half a dirhem I purchased three heads filled with the substance”[11].
One of the traders was the London merchant John Sanderson, an agent for the Turkey Company, who spent a year in Egypt, and gave this vivid account of his visit to the Memphis mummy pits in 1586: “[W]e were let down by ropes, as into a well, with waxe-candles burning in our hands, and so walked upon the bodies of all sorts and sizes … they gave no noisome smell at all .. I broke of all the parts of the bodies to see how the flesh was turned to drugge, and brought home divers heads, hands, armes and feet, for a shew; we brought also 600 pounds for the Turkie Companie in pieces; and brought into England in the Hercules: together with a whole body: they are lapped in above an hundred double of cloth, which rotting and pilling off, you may see the skin, flesh, fingers and nayles firme, altered blacke. One little hand I brought into England, to shew; and presented it to my brother, who gave the same to a doctor in Oxford” [12].
One of the traders was the London merchant John Sanderson, an agent for the Turkey Company, who spent a year in Egypt, and gave this vivid account of his visit to the Memphis mummy pits in 1586: “[W]e were let down by ropes, as into a well, with waxe-candles burning in our hands, and so walked upon the bodies of all sorts and sizes … they gave no noisome smell at all .. I broke of all the parts of the bodies to see how the flesh was turned to drugge, and brought home divers heads, hands, armes and feet, for a shew; we brought also 600 pounds for the Turkie Companie in pieces; and brought into England in the Hercules: together with a whole body: they are lapped in above an hundred double of cloth, which rotting and pilling off, you may see the skin, flesh, fingers and nayles firme, altered blacke. One little hand I brought into England, to shew; and presented it to my brother, who gave the same to a doctor in Oxford” [12].
Fig 1: A dozing mummy dealer with his even more tired stock (Felix Bonfils 1875). Source: Wikipedia Commons..
Apart from their medical use, mummies became somewhat of an attraction in themselves. In 1668, Samuel Pepys’ recounted how he went to a London dockside warehouse after a night of drinking to see an imported mummy before it was ground to pieces. “And so parted, I having there seen a mummy in a merchant’s warehouse there, all the middle of the man or woman’s body, black and hard. I never saw any before, and, therefore, it pleased me much, though an ill sight; and he did give me a little bit, and a bone of an arme.”[13]. Such mummy remnants would commonly form part of a gentleman’s “cabinet of curiosities”, with one little small collection being described by one visitor in 1639 as including items as diverse as two ribs of a whale, a pelican, the hand of a mermaid and the hand of a mummy”[14].
Inevitably, abuses quickly crept into the mummy trade. When “genuine” ancient mummies became too scarce or difficult to obtain, suppliers coped with the demand by resorting to using the corpses of condemned criminals. In his History, Pettigrew explains how French physician Guy de la Fontaine, physician to the king of Navarre, investigated the mummy trade in Alexandria in 1564. When he looked into the stock of mummies held by the chief dealer there, he found that the supply was substantially augmented by preparing the bodies of the recently dead, often executed criminals or slaves, by treating them with bitumen and exposing them to the sun, to produce mummified tissue which was then sold as authentic mumia [15].
Pettigrew goes on to recount how one merchant, when asked if the persons had died of any horrible disease, said that “he cared not whence they came, whether they were old or young, male or female, or of what disease they had died, so long as he could obtain them …. when embalmed no one could tell.” Sometimes even non-human remains were used. Mummified “children” sometimes turned out to be mummified ibises [16], and counterfeit mummies could also include the flesh of camels [17].
Inevitably, abuses quickly crept into the mummy trade. When “genuine” ancient mummies became too scarce or difficult to obtain, suppliers coped with the demand by resorting to using the corpses of condemned criminals. In his History, Pettigrew explains how French physician Guy de la Fontaine, physician to the king of Navarre, investigated the mummy trade in Alexandria in 1564. When he looked into the stock of mummies held by the chief dealer there, he found that the supply was substantially augmented by preparing the bodies of the recently dead, often executed criminals or slaves, by treating them with bitumen and exposing them to the sun, to produce mummified tissue which was then sold as authentic mumia [15].
Pettigrew goes on to recount how one merchant, when asked if the persons had died of any horrible disease, said that “he cared not whence they came, whether they were old or young, male or female, or of what disease they had died, so long as he could obtain them …. when embalmed no one could tell.” Sometimes even non-human remains were used. Mummified “children” sometimes turned out to be mummified ibises [16], and counterfeit mummies could also include the flesh of camels [17].
Medical acceptance and use
Mummy, or “mumia”, was typically the ground-up body, or body parts, applied topically to be rubbed on, or mixed into drinks to swallow. Its medical benefits were proclaimed in standard pharmacopoeia and extensively promoted by physicians, apothecaries and barber-surgeons [18]. By the 16th and 17th centuries it had become one of the most common drugs found in the apothecaries’ shops of Europe [19].
Its advocates included some of the most distinguished physicians and scientists of the time. So, for example, Francis Bacon considered that “mummy hath great force in staunching of blood” [20], and Robert Boyle claimed that it was “one of the useful medicines commended and given by our physicians for falls and bruises” [21]. Shakespeare’s son-in-law, the physician John Hall, treated a case of epilepsy by burning “a mixture of the aromatic resin benzoic, powdered mummy, black pitch and juice of rue”, with the resultant fumes being inhaled by the patient as a soporific [22]. Reputedly, François 1 of France always carried a pouch or purse containing a mixture of mumia and pulverized rhubarb, “fearing no accident, if he had but a little of that by him” to treat any ailment – from headaches and bruises to stomach complaints and broken bones. Catherine de Medici even sent her chaplain to Egypt in 1549 to procure some [23].
Its advocates included some of the most distinguished physicians and scientists of the time. So, for example, Francis Bacon considered that “mummy hath great force in staunching of blood” [20], and Robert Boyle claimed that it was “one of the useful medicines commended and given by our physicians for falls and bruises” [21]. Shakespeare’s son-in-law, the physician John Hall, treated a case of epilepsy by burning “a mixture of the aromatic resin benzoic, powdered mummy, black pitch and juice of rue”, with the resultant fumes being inhaled by the patient as a soporific [22]. Reputedly, François 1 of France always carried a pouch or purse containing a mixture of mumia and pulverized rhubarb, “fearing no accident, if he had but a little of that by him” to treat any ailment – from headaches and bruises to stomach complaints and broken bones. Catherine de Medici even sent her chaplain to Egypt in 1549 to procure some [23].
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Well into the 18th century, mummy – either the head, heart, fat, skin or bones – was still being enthusiastically prescribed for ailments as diverse as coagulated blood, “pungent pains of the spleen”, coughs, “inflation of the body”, obstruction of the menses and other uterine infections, consolidating wounds, difficult labours, hysteric affections, withering and contraction of joints, easing of pains, contractions, “hardness of cicatrices”, the pits left by the measles, "all sorts" of fluxes, catarrh, dysentery, "lientry" [diarrhoea with undigested food], contractions of the limbs, diseases of the head, and “particularly for the Epilepsy”[24].
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Fig 2: Apothecary’s mumia container (Germany, 18th century). Source: Wikipedia Commons; Author Bullenwächter.
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How do we account for this extravagant enthusiasm? Part of the explanation appears to be the long-held belief that mummies contained a mysterious life force that could be transferred to a sufferer to aid them in recovery. This belief was fostered by the 16th century Swiss-German medical reformer, Paracelsus, who considered that when we eat the flesh of an animal, we also attract that animal’s special qualities. Particularly as a time when ancient mummies started becoming scarce, Paracelsus could be called in aid to support the view that newer bodies could be used just as well (or even better). As Richard Sugg points out, Paracelsus favoured the use of more-or-less fresh corpses. “If doctors were aware of the power of this substance”, he insisted, “no body would be left on the gibbet for more than three days”[25].
Paracelsus’ follower, the influential German chemist, Johann Schroeder, was even more specific. He recommended “the cadaver of a reddish man (because in such a man the blood is believed lighter and so the flesh is better), whole, fresh without blemish, of around twenty-four years of age, dead of a violent death (not of illness), exposed to the moon's rays for one day and night”. This flesh would itself be treated so that “it comes to resemble smoke-cured meat, without any stench” [25]. Other authorities ascribed particular virtue to the bodies of “pure” young women. According to the early 17th-century physician Pietro della Valle, the best mummy was to be derived “from the maidens and the bodies of virgins” – a view still held by Jean Baptiste de Roquefort in 1824 [26].
Paracelsus’ follower, the influential German chemist, Johann Schroeder, was even more specific. He recommended “the cadaver of a reddish man (because in such a man the blood is believed lighter and so the flesh is better), whole, fresh without blemish, of around twenty-four years of age, dead of a violent death (not of illness), exposed to the moon's rays for one day and night”. This flesh would itself be treated so that “it comes to resemble smoke-cured meat, without any stench” [25]. Other authorities ascribed particular virtue to the bodies of “pure” young women. According to the early 17th-century physician Pietro della Valle, the best mummy was to be derived “from the maidens and the bodies of virgins” – a view still held by Jean Baptiste de Roquefort in 1824 [26].
Criticism and decline
Such enthusiasm was not universal. Egyptian merchants who exported the mummy to Europe, while profiting from the trade, had marvelled that Christians, “so dainty mouthed, could eat the bodies of the dead” [27]. Despite the popularity of mummy, this sentiment was also shared by many in Europe. Aufderheide cites the preacher Richard Hakluyt in 1599 as noting that “these dead bodies are the mummie which the Phisitians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make vs to swallow”[28]. In 1658 the philosopher Sir Thomas Browne commented acidly that, “The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummie is become Merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for Balsoms” [29]. He also commented, “Surely such diet is dismal vampirism; and exceeds in horror the black banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled except in those Arabian feasts, wherein Ghoules feed horribly”[30].
References to mummy in literature were also often ghoulish or critical, treating the substance with some distaste. Shakespeare mentions it in Macbeth, where the three witches add “witches’ mummy” to their cauldron of horrors, along with the tongue of a dog and the “finger of birth-strangl’d babe”. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, the portly Falstaff fears being drowned, “for the water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy” [31]. In John Donne’s poem Love’s Alchemy (c 1590), he rather ungallantly describes women as “but mummy, possessed”. Dramatist James Shirley in The Bird in a Cage (1633) had a character say, “Make mummy of my flesh, and sell me to the apothecaries” [32]. In Ben Jonson’s Volpone, Mosca suggests selling a body “for mummia; he’s half dust already”[33]. In John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, the character Bosola describes the body of the Duchess as “a box of wormseed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy”; and in his The White Devil, Gasparo says:
Your followers
Have swallowed you, like mummia, and being sick
With such unnatural and horrid physic,
Vomit you up i’ th’ kennel [34]
Some physicians, too, shared this distaste. In 1546 the German Leonhard Fuchs regarded mummy as disreputable, complaining of “the gory matter of cadavers received evidently from the gallows or from the torture wheel, spotted with the faeces of corpses in place of aloes and myrrh” [35]. According to the respected physician Ambroise Paré, it had no beneficial effects: “This wicked kinde of drugge, doth nothing to helpe the diseased .. .it also inferres many troublesome symptomes, such as the paine of the heart or stomacke, vomiting, and stinke of the mouth… I, persuaded by these reasons, doe not onely myselfe prescribe any hereof to my patients, but also in consultation, endeavour what I may, that it bee not prescribed by others” [36].
Nevertheless, the practice of using mummy medicine persisted and only subsided slowly, responding less to the persuasion of its critics than to the rise of scientific thinking and medical advances [37]. Possibly, too, the suspicion that mummy had contributed to outbreaks of plague may have played a part [38]. While still listed in some medical catalogues to quite a late stage, its clinical use declined substantially from the 18th century onwards. However, even in 1973 a New York shop was still offering “witches supplies” that supposedly included powdered mummy [39].
References to mummy in literature were also often ghoulish or critical, treating the substance with some distaste. Shakespeare mentions it in Macbeth, where the three witches add “witches’ mummy” to their cauldron of horrors, along with the tongue of a dog and the “finger of birth-strangl’d babe”. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, the portly Falstaff fears being drowned, “for the water swells a man, and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy” [31]. In John Donne’s poem Love’s Alchemy (c 1590), he rather ungallantly describes women as “but mummy, possessed”. Dramatist James Shirley in The Bird in a Cage (1633) had a character say, “Make mummy of my flesh, and sell me to the apothecaries” [32]. In Ben Jonson’s Volpone, Mosca suggests selling a body “for mummia; he’s half dust already”[33]. In John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, the character Bosola describes the body of the Duchess as “a box of wormseed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy”; and in his The White Devil, Gasparo says:
Your followers
Have swallowed you, like mummia, and being sick
With such unnatural and horrid physic,
Vomit you up i’ th’ kennel [34]
Some physicians, too, shared this distaste. In 1546 the German Leonhard Fuchs regarded mummy as disreputable, complaining of “the gory matter of cadavers received evidently from the gallows or from the torture wheel, spotted with the faeces of corpses in place of aloes and myrrh” [35]. According to the respected physician Ambroise Paré, it had no beneficial effects: “This wicked kinde of drugge, doth nothing to helpe the diseased .. .it also inferres many troublesome symptomes, such as the paine of the heart or stomacke, vomiting, and stinke of the mouth… I, persuaded by these reasons, doe not onely myselfe prescribe any hereof to my patients, but also in consultation, endeavour what I may, that it bee not prescribed by others” [36].
Nevertheless, the practice of using mummy medicine persisted and only subsided slowly, responding less to the persuasion of its critics than to the rise of scientific thinking and medical advances [37]. Possibly, too, the suspicion that mummy had contributed to outbreaks of plague may have played a part [38]. While still listed in some medical catalogues to quite a late stage, its clinical use declined substantially from the 18th century onwards. However, even in 1973 a New York shop was still offering “witches supplies” that supposedly included powdered mummy [39].
Mummies for education and entertainment
Just as the obsession with mummy medicine was on the way out, Napoleon’s unexpected occupation of Egypt in 1798 provided an enormous stimulus for renewed public interest in that country. This took two main forms. Firstly, scientific interest was piqued by the publication of the massive, magnificently illustrated ten-volume Description de l’Ėgypte, which documented the monuments, technology, geography, flora and fauna of the country. This had been based on the work of the 160-plus civilian “savants” – scholars and scientists – whom Napoleon had commissioned to accompany his Egypt expeditionary force.
Secondly, prompted by the Egyptian authorities' desire to modernise and open up the country to the West, and by spectacular archaeological discoveries [39a], tourism – previously spasmodic and sometimes dangerous – quickly became highly prestigious and fashionable. Fagan reports that, by the 1830s, “a craze for things Egyptian had taken Europeans by storm. Diplomats and tourists, merchants and dukes, all vied with one another to assemble spectacular collections of mummies and other antiquities” [40]. The developing mania for collecting Egyptian relics led to “ferocious rivalry, and the competitors could frequently be seen clambering over stones and broken sarcophagi, rooting through the rubble and bartering with boys whose pockets were stuffed with ancient remains”[41]. In 1833 the monk Father Géramb remarked “it would be hardly respectable, on one’s return from Egypt, to present oneself without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other”[42]. Some local tourism operators even took to “seeding” important visiting spots with mummies specially transported from elsewhere, to ensure that no-one left disappointed [43].
Safely back in Europe, one of the bizarre manifestations of the craze was the practice of conducting mummy unwrappings, or ”unrollings”. Often these were sober scientific affairs. So, for example, a late nineteenth century painting by Philippoteaux (Fig 3) depicts an unrolling and examination of a mummified priestess by members of the French scientific team that had discovered it at Deir el-Bahan. A plaque accompanying the painting identifies all the male members of the team (but, interestingly, not the fashionable lady spectators) [44].
Secondly, prompted by the Egyptian authorities' desire to modernise and open up the country to the West, and by spectacular archaeological discoveries [39a], tourism – previously spasmodic and sometimes dangerous – quickly became highly prestigious and fashionable. Fagan reports that, by the 1830s, “a craze for things Egyptian had taken Europeans by storm. Diplomats and tourists, merchants and dukes, all vied with one another to assemble spectacular collections of mummies and other antiquities” [40]. The developing mania for collecting Egyptian relics led to “ferocious rivalry, and the competitors could frequently be seen clambering over stones and broken sarcophagi, rooting through the rubble and bartering with boys whose pockets were stuffed with ancient remains”[41]. In 1833 the monk Father Géramb remarked “it would be hardly respectable, on one’s return from Egypt, to present oneself without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other”[42]. Some local tourism operators even took to “seeding” important visiting spots with mummies specially transported from elsewhere, to ensure that no-one left disappointed [43].
Safely back in Europe, one of the bizarre manifestations of the craze was the practice of conducting mummy unwrappings, or ”unrollings”. Often these were sober scientific affairs. So, for example, a late nineteenth century painting by Philippoteaux (Fig 3) depicts an unrolling and examination of a mummified priestess by members of the French scientific team that had discovered it at Deir el-Bahan. A plaque accompanying the painting identifies all the male members of the team (but, interestingly, not the fashionable lady spectators) [44].
Fig 3: Examination of a Mummy – A priestess of Ammon, Paul Dominique Philippoteaux c 1891. Credit: Peter Nahum at The Leicester Gallery, London
In England, the leading proponent of unrollings as a public spectacle was Thomas “Mummy” Pettigrew, a surgeon and antiquarian who became a leading expert on Egyptian mummies, wrote the classic History of Egyptian Mummies mentioned earlier in this article, and became the founding Treasurer of the British Archaeological Society.
Pettigrew was a rare mixture of scholar and showman. He starting his unrolling exhibitions in 1833 in the lecture theatre of Charing Cross Hospital. He went on to conduct many well-attended unrollings – sell-out events, with people being turned away at the door [45]. The unrollings were held in various settings, at public venues such as the Royal Institute, or in private gatherings, in which he would unwrap and sometimes autopsy a mummy for the education and entertainment of his guests.
Pettigrew was a rare mixture of scholar and showman. He starting his unrolling exhibitions in 1833 in the lecture theatre of Charing Cross Hospital. He went on to conduct many well-attended unrollings – sell-out events, with people being turned away at the door [45]. The unrollings were held in various settings, at public venues such as the Royal Institute, or in private gatherings, in which he would unwrap and sometimes autopsy a mummy for the education and entertainment of his guests.
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According to one witness’ account of an 1848 unrolling by Pettigrew, conducted at an artist’s studio, Pettigrew started by delivering “a perspicuous lecture on the various processes by which the ancient Egyptians preserved their dead; the [mummy] case generally was replete with mythological formula; the wrappings often disclosing the name, and perhaps the rank, of the deceased; and the papyri, when attached in any way to the body, supplying other information of exceeding interest...
"After this the unrolling of the mummy was skilfully performed, with observations, as the task proceeded, worthy of Mr. Pettigrew's long experience, and his having (we believe) done as much on forty or fifty similar subjects...”[46]. |
Fig 4: Poster advertising mummy unrolling, 1864
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The French novelist and critic Théophile Gautier also described an unrolling conducted at an “archaeological and funereal meeting” during the Exhibition of 1857: “The work of unrolling the bandages began; the outer envelope, of stout linen, was ripped open with scissors. A faint, delicate odour of balsam, incense, and other aromatic drugs spread through the room like the odour of an apothecary's shop. The end of the bandage was then sought for, and when found, the mummy was placed upright to allow the operator to move freely around her and to roll up the endless band, turned to the yellow colour of écru linen by the palm wine and other preserving liquids…. A vast quantity of linen filled the room, and we could not help wondering how a box which was scarcely larger than an ordinary coffin had managed to hold it all…".
Small ornaments emerged during the unrolling, Gautier noting that “in mummy cases there are often discovered numbers of these small trifles [possibly scarabs], and every curiosity shop is full of similar blue enamelled-ware figures.” As the unwrapping proceeded, “two white eyes with great black pupils shone with fictitious life between brown eyelids. They were enamelled eyes, such as it was customary to insert in carefully prepared mummies. The clear, fixed glance, gazing out of the dead face, produced a terrifying effect; the body seemed to behold with disdainful surprise the living beings that moved around it… Little by little the body began to show in its sad nudity …. is it not a surprising thing, one that seems to belong to the realm of dreams, to see on a table, in still appreciable shape, a being which walked in the sunshine, which lived and loved five hundred years before Moses, two thousand years before Jesus Christ?”[47].
It seems that not all unrollings were conducted in a very scholarly or scientific way. Lazer claims that mummy unwrapping became a popular form of Victorian parlour entertainment [48], though the extent to which this occurred in difficult to tell.
Small ornaments emerged during the unrolling, Gautier noting that “in mummy cases there are often discovered numbers of these small trifles [possibly scarabs], and every curiosity shop is full of similar blue enamelled-ware figures.” As the unwrapping proceeded, “two white eyes with great black pupils shone with fictitious life between brown eyelids. They were enamelled eyes, such as it was customary to insert in carefully prepared mummies. The clear, fixed glance, gazing out of the dead face, produced a terrifying effect; the body seemed to behold with disdainful surprise the living beings that moved around it… Little by little the body began to show in its sad nudity …. is it not a surprising thing, one that seems to belong to the realm of dreams, to see on a table, in still appreciable shape, a being which walked in the sunshine, which lived and loved five hundred years before Moses, two thousand years before Jesus Christ?”[47].
It seems that not all unrollings were conducted in a very scholarly or scientific way. Lazer claims that mummy unwrapping became a popular form of Victorian parlour entertainment [48], though the extent to which this occurred in difficult to tell.
Fig 5: Invitation, 1850: “Lord Londesborough: At Home: A Mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past two”
Mummy Brown in art
Given that Europeans happily ate, drank and rubbed mummy on themselves, you should not now be surprised to hear that they also painted with it. The product they used was called “Mummy Brown” – a rich brown pigment made from the flesh of mummies, mixed with white pitch and myrrh [49]. It was also known as Caput Mortuum [50] or Egyptian Brown [51]..
Fig 6: Modern equivalent of Mummy Brown pigment http://www.naturalpigments.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=460-22S
Mummy Brown was available, right up into the 20th century, from artists' colour-makers (or “colourmen”). As early as 1712, an artist supply shop rather jokily called “A La Momie” opened in Paris, selling paints and varnish as well as powdered mummy, incense and myrrh [52]. It seems that one mummy went quite a long way. Writing in 1915, Church reported that a London colourman informed him that one Egyptian mummy furnished sufficient material to satisfy the demands of his customers for twenty years [53].
Specific documented accounts of Mummy Brown being used in particular works seem to be hard to come by. Perhaps this is not surprising – as the pigment’s composition was rather variable (to say the least), it is difficult to determine whether it has been used in any particular case, without resorting to techniques such as mass spectrometry. But there seems to be general acceptance that Mummy Brown was being commonly used by artists from the sixteenth century. As a brown pigment with good transparency, it could be used as an oil paint, and possibly as a watercolour pigment, for glazing, shadows. flesh tones(!) and for shading [54].
The pigment achieved its greatest popularity in the mid-eighteenth to nineteenth centuries [55] and, in 1849, was described as being “quite in vogue” [56]. It was, for example, one of the pigments on Delacroix’ palette in 1854, when painting the Salone de la Paix at the Hotel de Ville [57]. The British portraitist Sir William Beechey was recorded as having stocks of it [58]. Certainly, too, it was being used by the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones in 1881 (with bizarre results, as we shall see), and most likely by Alma-Tadema and other colleagues [59]. The French artist Martin Drölling also reputedly used Mummy Brown made with the remains of French kings disinterred from the royal abbey of St-Denis in Paris. It has been suggested that his L’interieur d’une cuisine (Fig 7) is an example of extensive use of the pigment [60].
Specific documented accounts of Mummy Brown being used in particular works seem to be hard to come by. Perhaps this is not surprising – as the pigment’s composition was rather variable (to say the least), it is difficult to determine whether it has been used in any particular case, without resorting to techniques such as mass spectrometry. But there seems to be general acceptance that Mummy Brown was being commonly used by artists from the sixteenth century. As a brown pigment with good transparency, it could be used as an oil paint, and possibly as a watercolour pigment, for glazing, shadows. flesh tones(!) and for shading [54].
The pigment achieved its greatest popularity in the mid-eighteenth to nineteenth centuries [55] and, in 1849, was described as being “quite in vogue” [56]. It was, for example, one of the pigments on Delacroix’ palette in 1854, when painting the Salone de la Paix at the Hotel de Ville [57]. The British portraitist Sir William Beechey was recorded as having stocks of it [58]. Certainly, too, it was being used by the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones in 1881 (with bizarre results, as we shall see), and most likely by Alma-Tadema and other colleagues [59]. The French artist Martin Drölling also reputedly used Mummy Brown made with the remains of French kings disinterred from the royal abbey of St-Denis in Paris. It has been suggested that his L’interieur d’une cuisine (Fig 7) is an example of extensive use of the pigment [60].
Fig 7: Martin Drölling, L’interieur d’une cuisine. 1815 (Louvre)
However, despite its apparently widespread use, Mummy Brown generally received a bad press. There were some positives - "it flows from the brush with a delightful freedom and evenness" and gives "thin films that are extremely lovely and enjoyable"[61]. Field also notes one positive view that when mummy and bitumen are mixed in oil paints, they will “dry and never crack” and comments that “if this be the case, the compound would be preferable to either separate”[62]. But beyond this, most views on the technical qualities of Mummy Brown were quite negative. Just as with medical mummy, its critics felt that its origins were distasteful, its authenticity was dubious and its technical qualities were unsatisfactory.
We have already mentioned de la Fontaine’s report on the adulteration of the supply of mummies from Egypt. Field also cautioned that “It must be remembered…. that mummy varies exceedingly both in its composition and qualities”, while Church commented that “it is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that some samples of the pigment sold as “mummy” are spurious”[63]. Similarly Laughton Osborn concluded that “inasmuch as from their very nature or origin the various specimens of Mummy-Brown must differ more or less, there is not the least reliance to be placed upon them; one is in the dark as to his materials, and can predict nothing with even ordinary certainty as to the result of their employment”[64].
Overall, Field concluded that “little reliance should be placed on this brown. Mummy belongs to the class of pigments which are either good or bad, according as they turn out”[65]. Similarly, Osborn states that “mummy is at least useless” , citing Bouvier’s description of it being “among a number of bad pigments”, and quoting him further as saying that it “stands neither air nor sunshine, dries with even more difficulty than Asphaltum, is not better as a bitumen than the latter, and is besides a fat body, and finally that there is nothing in its hue which is not to be obtained in certain other really good browns". Osborn concludes that "it is not particularly prudent to employ without necessity these crumbled remains of dead bodies, which must contain ammonia and particles of fat in a concrete state, and more or less liable to injure the colours with which they may be united…. It is therefore that we ourselves… have never yet felt the least desire to essay this pigment, seeing nothing to be gained by smearing our canvas with a part perhaps of the wife of Potiphar, that might not be as easily secured by materials less frail and of more sober character”[66].
This negative view is shared by Church, who regarded Mummy Brown as inferior to prepared asphalt, because it had been submitted to a considerable degree of heat, and had thereby lost some of its volatile hydrocarbons. “Moreover", he said, "it is usual to grind up the bones and other parts of the mummy together, so that the resulting powder has more solidity and is less fusible [mixable] than the asphalt alone would be”[67]. Similarly, Adeline concluded that “whether genuine or not, it cannot be recommended to the painter, as, although it is a rich colour, it dries with difficulty, is not permanent, and may contain ammonia and particles of fat”[68].
By the way, mummy is not the only bodily substance that has been used for artists' pigments. Bizarrely, ear wax was commonly used as part of the binding agent for the pigments used in medieval illuminated manuscripts. You will, however, be relieved to hear that "Bladder Green" was not what you may fear -- it received its name simply because that green pigment was stored in animal bladders [68a].
We have already mentioned de la Fontaine’s report on the adulteration of the supply of mummies from Egypt. Field also cautioned that “It must be remembered…. that mummy varies exceedingly both in its composition and qualities”, while Church commented that “it is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that some samples of the pigment sold as “mummy” are spurious”[63]. Similarly Laughton Osborn concluded that “inasmuch as from their very nature or origin the various specimens of Mummy-Brown must differ more or less, there is not the least reliance to be placed upon them; one is in the dark as to his materials, and can predict nothing with even ordinary certainty as to the result of their employment”[64].
Overall, Field concluded that “little reliance should be placed on this brown. Mummy belongs to the class of pigments which are either good or bad, according as they turn out”[65]. Similarly, Osborn states that “mummy is at least useless” , citing Bouvier’s description of it being “among a number of bad pigments”, and quoting him further as saying that it “stands neither air nor sunshine, dries with even more difficulty than Asphaltum, is not better as a bitumen than the latter, and is besides a fat body, and finally that there is nothing in its hue which is not to be obtained in certain other really good browns". Osborn concludes that "it is not particularly prudent to employ without necessity these crumbled remains of dead bodies, which must contain ammonia and particles of fat in a concrete state, and more or less liable to injure the colours with which they may be united…. It is therefore that we ourselves… have never yet felt the least desire to essay this pigment, seeing nothing to be gained by smearing our canvas with a part perhaps of the wife of Potiphar, that might not be as easily secured by materials less frail and of more sober character”[66].
This negative view is shared by Church, who regarded Mummy Brown as inferior to prepared asphalt, because it had been submitted to a considerable degree of heat, and had thereby lost some of its volatile hydrocarbons. “Moreover", he said, "it is usual to grind up the bones and other parts of the mummy together, so that the resulting powder has more solidity and is less fusible [mixable] than the asphalt alone would be”[67]. Similarly, Adeline concluded that “whether genuine or not, it cannot be recommended to the painter, as, although it is a rich colour, it dries with difficulty, is not permanent, and may contain ammonia and particles of fat”[68].
By the way, mummy is not the only bodily substance that has been used for artists' pigments. Bizarrely, ear wax was commonly used as part of the binding agent for the pigments used in medieval illuminated manuscripts. You will, however, be relieved to hear that "Bladder Green" was not what you may fear -- it received its name simply because that green pigment was stored in animal bladders [68a].
The death of Mummy Brown
Given these views, it is somewhat of a wonder that Mummy Brown continued to be used for four centuries [69]. But the death knell was sounding. In her biography of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, his widow Georgina recalls a particularly fateful turning point. The artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema and his family were visiting the Burne-Jones’ for lunch on Sunday, a day which she says “was remembered by us all as the day of the funeral of a tube of mummy-paint. We were sitting together after lunch ..., the men talking about different colours that they used, when Mr.Tadema startled us by saying he had lately been invited to go and see a mummy that was in his colourman's workshop before it was ground down into paint. Edward scouted [scornfully rejected] the idea of the pigment having anything to do with a mummy — said the name must be only borrowed to describe a particular shade of brown — but when assured that it was actually compounded of real mummy, he left us at once, hastened to the studio, and returning with the only tube he had, insisted on our giving it decent burial there and then. So a hole was bored in the green grass at our feet, and we all watched it put safely in, and the spot was marked by one of the girls planting a daisy root above it”[70].
This bizarre but rather touching episode must have had quite an impact on those present, including a teenaged Rudyard Kipling, who was Georgina’s nephew. Kipling used to spend every December with the Burne-Jones’ at their London home. Here is how he described the mummy episode some decades later: “He [Burne-Jones] descended in broad daylight with a tube of ‘Mummy Brown’ in his hand, saying that he had discovered it was made of dead Pharaohs and we must bury it accordingly. So we all went out and helped – according to the rites of Mizraim and Memphis [71], I hope – and to this day I could drive a spade within a foot of where that tube lies”[72].
Burne-Jones’ action was symptomatic of the growing distaste surrounding the whole idea of Mummy Brown. Partly out of increasing awareness of its grisly origins (which appears to have somehow been forgotten by some), and the increasing respect for mummies’ scientific, archaeological, anthropological and cultural importance, added to the significant reduction in the number of mummies available, usage of the pigment fell away dramatically in the early twentieth century.
This bizarre but rather touching episode must have had quite an impact on those present, including a teenaged Rudyard Kipling, who was Georgina’s nephew. Kipling used to spend every December with the Burne-Jones’ at their London home. Here is how he described the mummy episode some decades later: “He [Burne-Jones] descended in broad daylight with a tube of ‘Mummy Brown’ in his hand, saying that he had discovered it was made of dead Pharaohs and we must bury it accordingly. So we all went out and helped – according to the rites of Mizraim and Memphis [71], I hope – and to this day I could drive a spade within a foot of where that tube lies”[72].
Burne-Jones’ action was symptomatic of the growing distaste surrounding the whole idea of Mummy Brown. Partly out of increasing awareness of its grisly origins (which appears to have somehow been forgotten by some), and the increasing respect for mummies’ scientific, archaeological, anthropological and cultural importance, added to the significant reduction in the number of mummies available, usage of the pigment fell away dramatically in the early twentieth century.
Fig 8: Tube of Mummy Brown pigment from Roberson and Co (Harvard Art Museums)
The long-established artists’ colour-makers Roberson’s of London stocked the pigment until the 1920-30s, but sold very little by that time (Fig 8) [73]. By 1964, the show was over. Roberson’s managing director regretfully admitted that the firm had run out of mummies. “We might have a few odd limbs lying around somewhere,” he apologised, “but not enough to make any more paint. We sold our last complete mummy some years ago for, I think, £3. Perhaps we shouldn't have. We certainly can't get any more”[74].
Yet, perhaps, the idea of Mummy Brown does live on. You may or may not be relieved to hear that families wanting a lasting celebration of their loved ones’ memories can now arrange for an artist to mix a portion of their family member’s ashes (“cremains”) into the colours of a tasteful handcrafted art work, such as a piece of jewellery, perfume bottle, or vase. You can even have it incorporated into the knob of a walking stick – so, as the artist’s website helpfully points out, you can “take an old friend for a walk”[75].
Note: For other articles on art colours, see Egyptian Blue: the colour of technology and Prussian blue and its partner in crime. On Egypt, you may also enjoy The art of giraffe diplomacy and Lost masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art from the Nebamun tomb-chapel
© Philip McCouat. First published 2013; updated 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "The life and death of Mummy Brown", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article
Back to HOME
Yet, perhaps, the idea of Mummy Brown does live on. You may or may not be relieved to hear that families wanting a lasting celebration of their loved ones’ memories can now arrange for an artist to mix a portion of their family member’s ashes (“cremains”) into the colours of a tasteful handcrafted art work, such as a piece of jewellery, perfume bottle, or vase. You can even have it incorporated into the knob of a walking stick – so, as the artist’s website helpfully points out, you can “take an old friend for a walk”[75].
Note: For other articles on art colours, see Egyptian Blue: the colour of technology and Prussian blue and its partner in crime. On Egypt, you may also enjoy The art of giraffe diplomacy and Lost masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art from the Nebamun tomb-chapel
© Philip McCouat. First published 2013; updated 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "The life and death of Mummy Brown", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article
Back to HOME
End notes
[1] Lazer, E, Resurrecting Pompeii, Routledge, Oxon, 2009 at 36; Aufderheide,A C, The Scientific Study of Mummies, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ch 10.
[2] The other locations included the floor of the Dead Sea (then called Lake Asphaltites), Babylonia, Sidon and Apollonia (now Albania): Aufderheide, op cit, at 515.
[3] His name is more correctly transcribed as Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231). He was a celebrated Iraqi physician/scholar who wrote widely on Egypt and medicine.
[4] Bitumen was in fact only occasionally used in traditional Egyptian mummification: Eastaugh, N et al, The Pigment Compendium, Elsevier, Oxford 2004, at 270.
[5] David, R, Discovering Ancient Egypt, Facts on File, New York, 1994 at 16; Fagan, B M, The Rape of the Nile, McDonald and Jane’s, London, 1977 at 45.
[6] The main Persian source was later called, in English, “Mummy Mountain”: Aufderheide, op cit at 515.
[7] David, op cit at 16; Aufderheide, op cit at 516.
[8] Fagan, op cit at 45.
[9] David, op cit at 16.
[10] Pettigrew, T J, A History of Egyptian Mummies. Longman, London, 1834 at 7.
[11] Fagan, op cit at 45. A dirhem is an ancient unit of currency used in some Arab countries.
[12] Sanderson, J, Personal Voyages, in Purchas His Pilgrims 1625, extracted in Carey, J (ed), Eyewitness to History, Avon Books, New York, 1987 at 135-6.
[13] Pepys, S, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, entry for May 12, 1668.
[14] Yallop, J, Magpies, Squirrels & Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World, Atlantic Books, London, 2011, at 225.
[15] Pettigrew, op cit at 8.
[16] Aufderheide, op cit at 528
[17] Sugg, R, “Corpse medicine: mummies, cannibals, and vampires”, The Lancet, Vol 371, Iss 9630, 21 June 2008 at 2078-9. The reverse situation has also occurred. Relics that were long believed to be remains of Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in 1431, have recently been identified as mummified remains some thousands of years older: Butler, D, “Joan of Arc’s relics exposed as forgery”, Nature, Vol 446, No 7136, p 593, 5 April 2007.
[18] Neill, M, “Physicke from Another Body”, London Review of Books, Vol 33, No 23, I December 2011, at 13-16. See generally Sugg, R, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, Routledge. 2009; and Noble. L, Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2011.
[19] David, op cit at 16.
[20] Pettigrew, op cit at 10: Sugg, R, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, Routledge. 2009 at 32.
[21] Pettigrew. op cit at 10.
[22] Sugg, op cit at 32.
[23] Pringle, H, The Mummy Congress, Fourth Estate, London, 2001 at 193; David, op cit at 16.
[24] Neill, op cit, quoting Robert James’s Pharmacopeia Universalis (1747).
[25] Sugg, op cit (Lancet article).
[26] Neill, op cit. It is interesting that in Shakespeare’s Othello (Act III Scene 4, c 1603) Desdemona’s handkerchief has been “dyed in mummy which the skilful conserved of maidens’ hearts”. See also Noble, op cit.
[27] Fagan, op cit at 46; Pettigrew, op cit at 8.
[28] Aufderheide, op cit at 518.
[29] Browne, Sir Thomas, Hydriotaphia (1658), ch V, accessed at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/index.shtml
[30] Browne, Sir Thomas, Fragment on Mummies, accessed at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/index.shtml.
[31] Macbeth (c 1606) Act IV Scene 1; The Merry Wives of Windsor (c 1602) Act III, Scene 5.
[32] Pettigrew, op cit at 9.
[33] Volpone (c1606) Act IV Scene 2.
[34] The Duchess of Malfi (c 1612/13) Act 4 Scene 2; The White Devil (1612) Act 1, Scene 1. For an early fiction work involving mummies - as distinct from mummy - see Jane C Loudon's The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty Second Century (1827).
[35] Neill, op cit.
[36] Pettigrew, op cit at 10-11, quoting The Works of that famous Chirugion Ambrose Parey, 1634 London edn, p 448.
[37] Aufderheide, op cit at 518.
[38] Languri, GM and Boon, JJ, “Between Myth and Reality: Mummy Pigment from the Hafkenscheid Collection”Studies in Conservation , Vol. 50, No. 3 (2005), pp. 161-178; Woodcock, S, ‘Body colour: the misuse of mummy’, The Conservator, Vol.20, Iss 1, 1996, pp.87.
[39] Aufderheide, op cit at 518.
[39a] For an interesting analysis of the "Mummy's Curse", popularly associated with tomb discoverers, see Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012.
[40] Fagan, op cit at 11.
[41] Yallop, op cit at 223.
[42] Fagan, op cit at 11.
[43] Special discoveries were arranged for notable visitors, eg during the 1869 visit of Prince of Wales to a particular site, there was a spectacular unearthing of 30 mummies, all of which had been transported there from other tombs.
[44] Angel, G, “Tattooing in Ancient Egypt Part 2: The Mummy of Amunet ”http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/tag/paul-dominique-philippoteaux/ 10 December 2012.
[45] Lazer, op cit at 38.One of Pettigrew's concerns was to establish by cranial measurement that the advanced ancient Egyptians must have came from Caucasian stock, not from African or "Negro" origins: Luckhurst, op cit at 100. The act of unwrapping a mummy had a special, but probably unsuspected, significance; it has been argued that the original wrapping ritual used in preparing the mummy played a crucial role in transforming the body into a sacred object: see Christina Riggs, Unwrapping Ancient Egypt, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2014.
[46] The Sydney Morning Herald 4 December 1848 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12908269? searchTerm=pettigrew%20history%20of%20mummies&searchLimits
[47] The Works of Théophile Gautier vol 5, p 299ff 1901http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27724/27724-h/27724-h.htm#THE_UNWRAPPING_OF_A_MUMMY . Some unrollings did not go to plan. It is reported that one of Pettigrew's exhibitions ended in failure when, after several hours' effort, he was unable to separate the substance of the mummy from the wrappings into which it had oozed and become inextricably embedded: Luckhurst, op cit at 101.
[48] Lazer, op cit at 38. Mark Twain parodied the widespread misuse of mummies in The Innocents Abroad (1869), writing, “The fuel [Egyptian railroaders] use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose . . . sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, 'D--n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent— pass out a King!” Twain notes that this was “stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe anything.” Some of his readers even took him seriously.
[49] Adeline’s Art Dictionary, D Appleton and Co, New York. 1905.
http://brittlebooks.library.illinois.edu/brittlebooks_open/Books2009-03/adelju0001adeart/adelju0001adeart_ocr.txt
[50] Literally, in Latin, meaning “dead head” it is used to describe “worthless remains”.
[51] The pigment is still manufactured today, but from a mummy-free mixture of minerals consisting of kaolin, quartz, goethite and haematite.
[52] Bomford, D, et al, Impressionism, National Gallery, London, 1990 at 33; Finlay, op cit at 95.
[53] Church, op cit at 262. Though perhaps this is more a comment on the declining use made of mummy by that time.
[54] Church, op cit at 262; Languri, op cit; Eastaugh, op cit at 269; Field’s Chromatography, or Treatise on Colours and Pigments, as Used by Artists, by Thomas W Salter (Windsor & Newton, London) at 253. Accessed at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20915/20915-h/20915-h.htm
[55] Eastaugh, op cit at 268.
[56] Osborne, L, Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oil Painting, J Wiley, New York, 1849, citing Bouvier, at 56: www.archive.org
[57] This was destroyed by fire in 1871; Hamerton, P G, The graphic arts; a treatise on the varieties of drawing, painting, and engraving in comparison with each other and with nature, Roberts Brothers, Boston 1882 at 318: http://www.ebooksread.com
[58] Finlay, op cit at 94.
[59] Eastaugh, op cit at 270
[60] Pringle, H, op cit at 203.
[61] Quoted by Pringle, op cit at 202.
[62] Field, op cit at 253.
[63] Church, op cit at 262.
[64] Osborn, op cit at 57.
[65] Field, op cit at 253.
[66] Osborn,op cit at 56-7.
[67] Church, op cit at 262.
[68] Adeline, op cit.
[68a] Thompson, D V, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, Dover Publ, New York, 1956, at 61, 171.
[69] Although, given that it was made from mummies, perhaps it is not so surprising after all?
[70] Burne-Jones, G, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, Macmillan, London, 1904 at para 114.
[71] Mizraim is the Hebrew name for the land of Egypt. Memphis, was an ancient capital of Lower Egypt and a current World Heritage site.
[72] Rudyard Kipling: Something of Myself and other Autobiographical Writings (ed Thomas Pinney), Cambridge University Press, 1990, at 9-10. See also Finlay, op cit at 95, 96. Kipling was very well connected – he had another aunt (Louisa) who was the mother of future British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and a third aunt (Agnes) who married a President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward Poynter. For a full account of this extraordinary extended family, see Flanders, J, A Circle of Sisters, Viking, London, 2001.
[73] Eastaugh, op cit at 270.
[74] “Techniques: The Passing of Mummy Brown”, Time, October 2, 1964.
[75] www.artfromashes.com
© Philip McCouat 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "The life and death of Mummy Brown", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article
Back to HOME
[2] The other locations included the floor of the Dead Sea (then called Lake Asphaltites), Babylonia, Sidon and Apollonia (now Albania): Aufderheide, op cit, at 515.
[3] His name is more correctly transcribed as Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231). He was a celebrated Iraqi physician/scholar who wrote widely on Egypt and medicine.
[4] Bitumen was in fact only occasionally used in traditional Egyptian mummification: Eastaugh, N et al, The Pigment Compendium, Elsevier, Oxford 2004, at 270.
[5] David, R, Discovering Ancient Egypt, Facts on File, New York, 1994 at 16; Fagan, B M, The Rape of the Nile, McDonald and Jane’s, London, 1977 at 45.
[6] The main Persian source was later called, in English, “Mummy Mountain”: Aufderheide, op cit at 515.
[7] David, op cit at 16; Aufderheide, op cit at 516.
[8] Fagan, op cit at 45.
[9] David, op cit at 16.
[10] Pettigrew, T J, A History of Egyptian Mummies. Longman, London, 1834 at 7.
[11] Fagan, op cit at 45. A dirhem is an ancient unit of currency used in some Arab countries.
[12] Sanderson, J, Personal Voyages, in Purchas His Pilgrims 1625, extracted in Carey, J (ed), Eyewitness to History, Avon Books, New York, 1987 at 135-6.
[13] Pepys, S, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, entry for May 12, 1668.
[14] Yallop, J, Magpies, Squirrels & Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World, Atlantic Books, London, 2011, at 225.
[15] Pettigrew, op cit at 8.
[16] Aufderheide, op cit at 528
[17] Sugg, R, “Corpse medicine: mummies, cannibals, and vampires”, The Lancet, Vol 371, Iss 9630, 21 June 2008 at 2078-9. The reverse situation has also occurred. Relics that were long believed to be remains of Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in 1431, have recently been identified as mummified remains some thousands of years older: Butler, D, “Joan of Arc’s relics exposed as forgery”, Nature, Vol 446, No 7136, p 593, 5 April 2007.
[18] Neill, M, “Physicke from Another Body”, London Review of Books, Vol 33, No 23, I December 2011, at 13-16. See generally Sugg, R, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, Routledge. 2009; and Noble. L, Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2011.
[19] David, op cit at 16.
[20] Pettigrew, op cit at 10: Sugg, R, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, Routledge. 2009 at 32.
[21] Pettigrew. op cit at 10.
[22] Sugg, op cit at 32.
[23] Pringle, H, The Mummy Congress, Fourth Estate, London, 2001 at 193; David, op cit at 16.
[24] Neill, op cit, quoting Robert James’s Pharmacopeia Universalis (1747).
[25] Sugg, op cit (Lancet article).
[26] Neill, op cit. It is interesting that in Shakespeare’s Othello (Act III Scene 4, c 1603) Desdemona’s handkerchief has been “dyed in mummy which the skilful conserved of maidens’ hearts”. See also Noble, op cit.
[27] Fagan, op cit at 46; Pettigrew, op cit at 8.
[28] Aufderheide, op cit at 518.
[29] Browne, Sir Thomas, Hydriotaphia (1658), ch V, accessed at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/index.shtml
[30] Browne, Sir Thomas, Fragment on Mummies, accessed at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/index.shtml.
[31] Macbeth (c 1606) Act IV Scene 1; The Merry Wives of Windsor (c 1602) Act III, Scene 5.
[32] Pettigrew, op cit at 9.
[33] Volpone (c1606) Act IV Scene 2.
[34] The Duchess of Malfi (c 1612/13) Act 4 Scene 2; The White Devil (1612) Act 1, Scene 1. For an early fiction work involving mummies - as distinct from mummy - see Jane C Loudon's The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty Second Century (1827).
[35] Neill, op cit.
[36] Pettigrew, op cit at 10-11, quoting The Works of that famous Chirugion Ambrose Parey, 1634 London edn, p 448.
[37] Aufderheide, op cit at 518.
[38] Languri, GM and Boon, JJ, “Between Myth and Reality: Mummy Pigment from the Hafkenscheid Collection”Studies in Conservation , Vol. 50, No. 3 (2005), pp. 161-178; Woodcock, S, ‘Body colour: the misuse of mummy’, The Conservator, Vol.20, Iss 1, 1996, pp.87.
[39] Aufderheide, op cit at 518.
[39a] For an interesting analysis of the "Mummy's Curse", popularly associated with tomb discoverers, see Roger Luckhurst, The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012.
[40] Fagan, op cit at 11.
[41] Yallop, op cit at 223.
[42] Fagan, op cit at 11.
[43] Special discoveries were arranged for notable visitors, eg during the 1869 visit of Prince of Wales to a particular site, there was a spectacular unearthing of 30 mummies, all of which had been transported there from other tombs.
[44] Angel, G, “Tattooing in Ancient Egypt Part 2: The Mummy of Amunet ”http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/tag/paul-dominique-philippoteaux/ 10 December 2012.
[45] Lazer, op cit at 38.One of Pettigrew's concerns was to establish by cranial measurement that the advanced ancient Egyptians must have came from Caucasian stock, not from African or "Negro" origins: Luckhurst, op cit at 100. The act of unwrapping a mummy had a special, but probably unsuspected, significance; it has been argued that the original wrapping ritual used in preparing the mummy played a crucial role in transforming the body into a sacred object: see Christina Riggs, Unwrapping Ancient Egypt, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2014.
[46] The Sydney Morning Herald 4 December 1848 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12908269? searchTerm=pettigrew%20history%20of%20mummies&searchLimits
[47] The Works of Théophile Gautier vol 5, p 299ff 1901http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27724/27724-h/27724-h.htm#THE_UNWRAPPING_OF_A_MUMMY . Some unrollings did not go to plan. It is reported that one of Pettigrew's exhibitions ended in failure when, after several hours' effort, he was unable to separate the substance of the mummy from the wrappings into which it had oozed and become inextricably embedded: Luckhurst, op cit at 101.
[48] Lazer, op cit at 38. Mark Twain parodied the widespread misuse of mummies in The Innocents Abroad (1869), writing, “The fuel [Egyptian railroaders] use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose . . . sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, 'D--n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent— pass out a King!” Twain notes that this was “stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe anything.” Some of his readers even took him seriously.
[49] Adeline’s Art Dictionary, D Appleton and Co, New York. 1905.
http://brittlebooks.library.illinois.edu/brittlebooks_open/Books2009-03/adelju0001adeart/adelju0001adeart_ocr.txt
[50] Literally, in Latin, meaning “dead head” it is used to describe “worthless remains”.
[51] The pigment is still manufactured today, but from a mummy-free mixture of minerals consisting of kaolin, quartz, goethite and haematite.
[52] Bomford, D, et al, Impressionism, National Gallery, London, 1990 at 33; Finlay, op cit at 95.
[53] Church, op cit at 262. Though perhaps this is more a comment on the declining use made of mummy by that time.
[54] Church, op cit at 262; Languri, op cit; Eastaugh, op cit at 269; Field’s Chromatography, or Treatise on Colours and Pigments, as Used by Artists, by Thomas W Salter (Windsor & Newton, London) at 253. Accessed at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20915/20915-h/20915-h.htm
[55] Eastaugh, op cit at 268.
[56] Osborne, L, Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oil Painting, J Wiley, New York, 1849, citing Bouvier, at 56: www.archive.org
[57] This was destroyed by fire in 1871; Hamerton, P G, The graphic arts; a treatise on the varieties of drawing, painting, and engraving in comparison with each other and with nature, Roberts Brothers, Boston 1882 at 318: http://www.ebooksread.com
[58] Finlay, op cit at 94.
[59] Eastaugh, op cit at 270
[60] Pringle, H, op cit at 203.
[61] Quoted by Pringle, op cit at 202.
[62] Field, op cit at 253.
[63] Church, op cit at 262.
[64] Osborn, op cit at 57.
[65] Field, op cit at 253.
[66] Osborn,op cit at 56-7.
[67] Church, op cit at 262.
[68] Adeline, op cit.
[68a] Thompson, D V, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, Dover Publ, New York, 1956, at 61, 171.
[69] Although, given that it was made from mummies, perhaps it is not so surprising after all?
[70] Burne-Jones, G, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, Macmillan, London, 1904 at para 114.
[71] Mizraim is the Hebrew name for the land of Egypt. Memphis, was an ancient capital of Lower Egypt and a current World Heritage site.
[72] Rudyard Kipling: Something of Myself and other Autobiographical Writings (ed Thomas Pinney), Cambridge University Press, 1990, at 9-10. See also Finlay, op cit at 95, 96. Kipling was very well connected – he had another aunt (Louisa) who was the mother of future British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and a third aunt (Agnes) who married a President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward Poynter. For a full account of this extraordinary extended family, see Flanders, J, A Circle of Sisters, Viking, London, 2001.
[73] Eastaugh, op cit at 270.
[74] “Techniques: The Passing of Mummy Brown”, Time, October 2, 1964.
[75] www.artfromashes.com
© Philip McCouat 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "The life and death of Mummy Brown", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
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