(detailed photos and additional views available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.31567637)
Egyptian
26th Dynasty
(ca. 685 – 525 BCE)
AWG1876.01.01-.02
Museum of Richmond College
Purchased in Thebes by Professor J.L.M. Curry, 1875
Coffin: paint on plastered linen on wood, probably sycamore
The display of the mummified remains of Ti-Ameny-Net is intended to be as respectful as possible, balancing conservation concerns, educational goals, and the value of human dignity. We aim to increase awareness and appreciation of the complex mummification process as well as Egyptian funerary art. In keeping with the Egyptian belief that the more one’s name was spoken aloud after death the better one’s afterlife existence would be, we encourage visitors to say her name. This preserved mummy represents a real human life, and we ask visitors to be respectful and refrain from taking photos.
Ti-Ameny-Net lived in ancient Egypt in the 26th Dynasty (ca. 685 – 525 BCE). Her body was dehydrated with natron, preserved in resins, and completely wrapped in linen before being placed in the coffin. She was one of thirty mummies presented to the Prince of Wales during his visit to Thebes in 1869. While the other 29 mummies were taken back to England, Ti-Ameny-Net was given by the prince to his American translator, who sold her to Richmond College professor J.L.M. Curry in 1875. The mummy and coffin were brought to Richmond in 1876, after first being displayed in the US at Thomas Cook & Sons’ pavilion at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. They were displayed in the museum of Richmond College until 1914, when the college moved to the present University of Richmond campus. There was no permanent museum on the new campus, so Ti-Ameny-Net and her coffin were exhibited and stored in various locations including the library and a biology museum in Maryland Hall before finding a home in the Ancient World Gallery, which opened in North Court in 1979 and moved to the Humanities Building in 2021.
For more information about the long history of Ti-Ameny-Net, the process of mummification, and the text and images on her painted coffin, see classics.richmond.edu/gallery/egyptian-collection/mummy/ and explore the links below:
3D model of coffin, made by Dr. Bernard Means, director of VCU's Virtual Curation Lab
CT & X-Ray images made by Dr. Ann Fulcher (Department of Radiology, VCU Medical Center)
Digital facial reconstruction created by Joshua Harker, a forensic artist in Chicago
