There was something very fascinating, though strange and weird, about this who ceremony… it is not probable that when “Penpi” was laid away amid the tears of his friends that the idea came to them that in distant ages his body would be regarded as a curiosity. – from a description of a public mummy unwrapping ceremony, Duluth Daily Tribune (Minnesota), July4, 1884
During the nineteenth century in Europe and America there was an interest and fascination with all things related to ancient Egypt. As part of this fad, often called Egyptomania, mummy unwrapping parties became a popular form of entertainment among the British upper class and wealthy Americans, and these events were sometimes commercial, ticketed affairs. Examiners who led the unwrappings would shock guests by exposing the bodies and were not concerned about damaging the mummies. After the parties, the mummies were often donated to medical schools for preparation as teaching skeletons.
Ti Ameny Net’s mummy might have been part of one of these unwrapping parties. Several areas of her body are entirely exposed, including her head and her toes and part of her torso. Her scalp is almost completely missing, possibly removed with the wrapping. Accounts from Philadelphia confirm that she was already partly unwrapped before her display there as a part of the 1876 Centennial Exposition.
Up next: Funerary Offerings