Field trip!

Posted on August 3, 2013 by mollygleeson

Sometimes getting started on a conservation treatment requires getting out of the lab for a bit, so this week, my colleague Julie Lawson and I took a field trip down to Baltimore to visit the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum and chat mummy treatments with their Curator/Conservator, Sanchita Balachandran. Sanchita and I connected at the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) annual meeting back in June – I had read about a treatment that she carried out on a human mummy at the museum, and when we realized that we both had animal mummies in our labs as well, we decided we’d get together for a brainstorming session to discuss treatment approaches, materials, and storage options for these fragile objects.

Julie Lawson admires artifacts in one of the cases in the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum

The Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum is nestled in the center of the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus in Baltimore, in a beautifully-renovated building, surrounded by classrooms and light-filled student study spaces. The museum was established in 1882 and since its founding, has been dedicated to inspiring and teaching students at the university.

One of the main features of the museum is the display of archaeological objects from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Near East, and the ancient Americas, displayed in glass case walls, allowing students, faculty, and visitors to view these pieces and peer into the museum itself.

The museum also displays pieces on loan, including an ancient Egyptian mummy from Goucher College.

This was the mummy that I had read about and was curious to learn more about from Sanchita. The Goucher mummy is an adult female mummy from the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BCE), and I knew some details of the treatment from Sanchita’s article in the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (JAIC), but this was a great opportunity for me to see this mummy up-close and to ask Sanchita more about how she approached this treatment and the specific materials and techniques she used. Since we are in the middle of working on the treatment of our mummy PUM I here in the Artifact Lab, this conversation was very timely.

Detail of the Stabiltex encapsulating the feet of the Goucher mummy

The Goucher mummy has a fascinating history that I won’t get into here, but you can learn more about her in the “Object Stories” section of the museum’s website by following this link. One of the things I was curious to discuss more with Sanchita was her use of Stabiltex, a sheer polyester fabric, to protect fragile areas of the mummy’s wrappings, and the design and construction of the support the mummy is currently resting on in the exhibit. As I said, we’re working on encapsulating PUM I’s outer linen wrappings in a similar way, but using a different type of sheer netting fabric. After discussing techniques with Sanchita and seeing how successful her treatment of the Goucher mummy was, I returned to the Artifact Lab feeling good about our approach to PUM I’s treatment!

Sanchita also pulled out several animal mummies that she is currently working on, including these cuties:

Cat (above) and dog (below) mummies

We discussed the challenges of dealing with such fragile linen wrappings and our experiences with and use of different adhesives, as well as techniques for encapsulating fragile areas. Sanchita also showed us their handling and storage mounts, which go a long way in protecting these artifacts.

Sanchita lifts an ibis mummy from its storage box using a handling tray

After discussing mummies at length, Sanchita took us back into their storage area, where we had the opportunity to see additional Egyptian artifacts, including several painted wood artifacts with a variety of condition problems. As readers to this blog may know, we have our own fair share of challenging painted wooden artifacts, including Tawahibre’s coffin, so I was eager to see how Sanchita was approaching the treatment of these pieces as well.

Sanchita and Julie in storage

All in all, it was a fun and productive day! These types of professional exchanges are incredibly valuable, and I’m not only inspired to tackle some treatments and try new things back in the lab, but to make more time in the future to visit other colleagues and collections. A huge thanks to Sanchita for hosting us and for sharing so much about her work at Johns Hopkins.

Conservators-in-training

Posted on July 23, 2013 by mollygleeson

Update – this post contains outdated language. We no longer use the term “mummy” and instead use “mummified human individuals” to refer to Ancient Egyptian people whose bodies were preserved for the afterlife. To read more about this decision, follow this link.

….

For over 10 years, our museum has organized an “Anthropologists in the Making” Summer Camp, and today we hosted 66 of these summer campers in the Artifact Lab for an afternoon of conservation training.

This year the camp is being held over 8 weeks, with different themes each week, including Can you Dig it?, all about archaeology, and Visions and Dreams, which explores the significance of dreams and the roles of shamans and mystics (this one is coming up in August).

The camp theme this week is Mummies Unwrapped so of course we had to give the campers a taste zxxcconservation, in addition to what they are learning about mummies and ancient Egypt.

We organized 3 different activities for the 7-13 year olds (they were split into 2 groups according to age) to test their hand and observation skills. All 3 activities were created to mimic some of the work that we’ve been doing in the Artifact Lab, including:

– an excavation station, which challenged the campers to pick out the remains of a beaded shroud from a bin of debris (similar to recovering PUM I’s beads)

– a cleaning station, where campers tried different cleaning tests to remove dirt from a painted ceramic tile (like the cleaning that we’ve been doing on our painted coffin of Tawahibre)

– a materials ID station, where the campers had the opportunity to examine “mystery” materials under magnification and then had to identify what they were looking at (an example of one of the material ID challenges we’ve encountered in the lab can be found here)

A camper compares reference materials to the magnified image of the “mystery” material on the monitor

For each activity, we had the kids fill out worksheets to record their observations, to give them a sense of the documentation involved in our work. Before moving on to the next station, each camper needed to get their supervising conservator to sign off on their worksheet. On their way out the door, all campers received certificates declaring them “Junior Conservators for-the-day”.

We had lots of fun, not only preparing for the camp

Arts and crafts day in the Artifact Lab (left) and the painted tiles before “dirtying” them for the campers (right)

but also working with the kids at each of the stations. We were impressed with their observations and how quickly they picked up on each activity (rolling swabs can be hard at first!). Special thanks to our Education Department and to all of the summer campers for increasing our department more than tenfold for the afternoon!

Mummies, Mannequins and Wanamaker’s

Posted on October 23, 2012 by artifactlab

Update – this post contains blurred images of human remains and outdated language. We no longer use the term “mummy” and instead use “mummified human individuals” to refer to Ancient Egyptian people whose bodies were preserved for the afterlife. To read more about these changes, follow this link.

Okay, bear with me here – I’m going to explain the connection between one of the mummies here in the Artifact Lab, Wanamaker’s Department store, and the 1987 movie Mannequin.

PUM (Philadelphia University Museum) I is a mummy lying in a wood coffin, dating to 840-820 BCE. The mummy and coffin were exhibited at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis and subsequently purchased by John Wanamaker as a gift for the museum. They were packed and shipped directly to the museum in early 1905. This is what PUM I looked like soon after arriving to the museum (click here) and this is what PUM I looks like now:

We don’t know who PUM I was-there are no identifying marks that are visible on the wrappings or coffin. We do know, however, that this person was a man-the body was x-rayed in 1932 and also autopsied early on by cutting a section of the wrappings away from the pelvic region, and determined to be an older man. Each end of the coffin does have some painted decoration-one end depicting Isis and the other her sister Nephthys, as protectors of the mummy.

One end of PUM I’s coffin showing the depiction of Isis in the center

One of our goals this year in the Artifact Lab will be to remove the deteriorated remains from the coffin and stabilize them for transport to the hospital for CT-scanning, so that we can learn more about this individual.

What does this have to do with mannequins, you’re wondering? Well, as most people in Philadelphia know, John Wanamaker, the man who purchased and donated PUM I to the Penn Museum, was a businessman from Philadelphia who founded the first department store here, Wanamaker’s. Last week my mom and I wandered into the old Wanamaker’s in Center City, now a Macy’s. It’s a beautiful building with the world’s largest playable organ (also built for the 1904 St. Louis World Fair), which is played every day of the week except for Sunday, as well as more often on special occasions.

My mom reminded me that one of my favorite childhood films, Mannequin, was filmed in the store, and it made me want to watch it again-it’s been a long time since I last saw it. But only today did it dawn on me that there is another reason to watch it, and it’s related (very loosely) to work: the mannequin character, played by Kim Cattrall, is from Ancient Egypt, living in the year 2514 BC, and the film begins in Egypt.

Kim Cattrall bandaged as a mummy at the beginning of the movie

If this doesn’t make you want to watch the movie, I don’t know what will. Alternatively, you could come check out PUM I in the Artifact Lab. We’ll let you know when we make a move to get him out of his coffin.

Posted by Molly

In the Artifact Lab

Tag Archives: PUM I

Field trip!

Conservators-in-training

Mummies, Mannequins and Wanamaker’s