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IRT-IRW. This is the mummified body of IRT-IRW, who was buried at Thebes about 2,600 years ago. She was bought in Paris in 1825 from an auction of the collection of Baron Dominique Vivant Denon. He obtained the mummy while on campaign with Napoleon in Egypt. John Bowes Wright (1780-1836) of Haydon Bridge in Northumberland, purchased 'IRTY' and presented her and her two coffins to the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society in 1826. In 1830 the body was unwrapped and examined by local surgeons. The Y-shaped incision in her stomach dates from the post mortem carried out then. Bandages weighing 22.5 Kg were removed but contained no amulets. The examination revealed that her brain and internal organs were not removed before embalming. This is not unusual, but simply one of the various methods employed at the time. She is thought to have been middle aged and the cause of her death was not determined by the autopsy.
When Napoleon invaded Alexandria on July 1st 1798 he took with him the now famous Commission of Arts and Science to chronicle Egypt and its antiquities. One of the artists among these scholars and scientists was Dominique Denon, a young Frenchman whose interest in Ancient Egypt became a passion. He began to amass his own collection by sending back to France items of interest. Among these was an adult female mummy IRT-IRW which was later to grace our collection. After the campaign the baron went on to publish his own account of the invasion - Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt - and followed an illustrious career as an historian and collector. He went on to become the first director of the Louvre and founded their Egyptian Gallery.
This unwrapped mummy of a middle-aged female comes from a tomb at Thebes in Upper Egypt. It dates to the 26th Dynasty (about 664-525 BC). The word 'mummy' is from the Persian-Arabic word 'moumiya' meaning 'bitumen' or 'pitch' and refers to the hard, black resinous coating found on Egyptian mummies. The dead were preserved because the Ancient Egyptians believed it was important to preserve the human body for the well being of the 'ka' (human spirit).
Material: human tissue
Material: wood, sycamore | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | emu.ecatalogue.worldarchaeology.21858 | Go to resource |
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