Lecture – The Mummy Bands of the Captain of Amun

The Mummy Bands of the Captain of Amun

Speaker:

Dr Ashley Cooke

Date:

15th October 2024

Seven painted strips of papyrus. Third Intermediate Period. World Museum Liverpool — Photo courtesy of National Museums Liverpool

Ashley’s seminar to the Society included an introduction to the Egyptology collection at the World Museum in William Brown Street, Liverpool: a jewel in the crown of the Northwest. He also told some of the story of Joseph Mayer: one of the founders of the Museum and an obsessive collector of Egyptian antiquities in the 19th century, often beating the British Museum to acquisitions, with his skills in doing quick deals.

Mayer donated his collection to the Liverpool Museum, including six (catalogued as seven), painted, papyrus strips. The hieroglyphs on the strips included an inscription for Mery, a skipper or captain of Amun and Dr Cooke told the story of how he and his colleagues had deduced that these papyrus strips were actually mummy bands, similar to the ones, made from gilded cloth and plaster, of Yuya and Thuya.

Mery’s mummy bands are incredibly rare, presumably because the papyrus is so fragile. These are the only known mummy bands belonging to someone without royal connections. However, Dr Cooke thought that was possible that other examples exist in other museums around the world, possibly identified as fragments of Books of the Dead.

About the speaker

Ashley Cooke is Senior Curator of Antiquities at National Museums, Liverpool, responsible for the Egyptian, Nubian and Near East collections. He has worked with Egyptian collections for over twenty years, including fieldwork with Liverpool University in Egypt.

Ashley is co-project lead of an AHRC-funded project to enhance access to archaeological collections excavated by John Garstang of Liverpool University in the early 20th century.