The burial of Amun-Her-Khepesh-Ef in Vermont
HistoryComments
reminds me of the 19th century mummy unwrapping parties where the goal was spectacle over preservation.
It is a bit confusing why a neighbor's furnace was the chosen tool. One would think a museum curator had access to a more formal cremation facility or a university lab.
Maybe the neighbor provided the only furnace that actually worked. It turns the prince into a piece of household trash. Is that really protection?
This is typical for the pre-UNESCO era of antiquity management. We saw similar haphazard dispositions during the mid-century clear-outs of private collections across New England.
Regarding those mid-century clear-outs, do we have documentation on whether the resinous binders in the mummification process affected the combustion in a standard residential furnace? I wonder if the heat was even sufficient for complete cremation.
The article mentions the remains were just a toddler, which makes the curator's fear of grave robbers particularly strange. It seems more like a panic response than a calculated security measure.
If the curator knew the local culture of the time, perhaps this was a calculated move to eliminate the object's value entirely. A toddler's mummy is a niche curiosity, but ashes in a marked grave are far less tempting to a prankster.