Chicago scientists open Egyptian mummy coffin

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By CARYN ROUSSEAU

CHICAGO (AP) — Once the lid was off the wood coffin holding the 2,500-year-old mummified remains of a 14-year-old Egyptian boy, scientist J.P. Brown could relax.

The conservator at Chicago's Field Museum and three other scientists had just used clamps and pieces of metal to create a cradle to lift the fragile lid. Wearing blue surgical gloves, they slowly lifted the contraption containing the coffin lid and carefully walked it to a table in a humidity-controlled lab at the museum.

"Sweet!" Brown said, after helping set the lid down. He later added: "Oh yeah, god, I was nervous."

The well-planned routine came Friday as scientists started conservation work on the mummy of Minirdis, the son of a stolist priest. The mummy needs to be stabilized so it can travel in the upcoming exhibit, "Mummies: Images of the Afterlife," which is expected to premier next September at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It is expected to travel to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in fall 2016.

FULL story at link.



In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, in Chicago, Egyptian hieroglyphics etched on top of a 2500 year-old Egyptian coffin identify the mummy's name and lineage inside. P.J. Brown, Regenstein Conservator at the Field Museum and his team opened the coffin of Minirdis, a 14-year-old boy, to perform conservation work before it becomes part of a traveling exhibition. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141208/us-mummy-coffin-opening-24e30ecfad.html

[katmondoo]

1. Doesn't this belong to Egypt

How did the Chicago Museum get this Mummy?

[dhol82]

2. Considering the situation in Egypt

don't you think it is better off here?

[cstanleytech]

3. There is no short answer it just depends on the mummy as well as when and how is was

acquired by the museum.
I know some museums have voluntarily returned mummies and other artifacts but not all of them have and I am not sure if they have to as long as they legally acquired them.

[csziggy]

4. It used to be every museum had to have a mummy

Even little local museums used to get them - there was one at a ship board museum in St. Petersburg, Florida years ago. A mummy had nothing to do with the maritime subject matter, but they had one anyway.


As for how this particular mummy go to the Chicago Museum, from the link in the OP:
"The Field Museum has had the mummy since the 1920s, when the institution received it from the Chicago Historical Society. It's part of the museum's collection of 30 complete human mummies from Egypt."