PINUDJEM Ist REVEALED

Closing in on the Missing Mummy of Cache DB320

When the Egyptian Museum Catalogue General volume on the Royal Mummies-prepared by Australian anatomist G. Elliot Smith-was published in 1912, inexplicably two of the forty mummies recovered from Cache Tomb Deir el Bahari 320 (by Emile Brugsch in July 1881) were not included: those identified in the tally of royal and non-royal remains as late Twentieth Dynasty king Rameses IX and Priest King Pinudjem I of the early-Twenty-first Dynasty (it was the family tomb of the latter which had been employed for the caching of New Kingdom royalty and others when the Wadi Biban el Moluk burials were dismantled).

While gathering archival photographic and other illustrative materials materials for my book-inprogress, Tomb, Treasures, Mummies: Seven Great Discoveries of Egyptian Archaeology, I have been frustrated to find that the ninth Rameses's remains apparently never were photographed by Brugsch at the time of their unwrapping; at least any such photos as may have been taken by him (or anyone else) appear not to have been published- or so obscurely as to have eluded present day detection.

Pinudjem I, on the other hand, was photographed by Brugsch, and a view of the wraped mummy is known today (which, in fact, has been published more than once in the pages of this Journal). But my researches have failed to uncover any views of these remains in an unwraped state, and today even the whereabouts of the priest-king is apparently unknown (he was not available to be x-rayed by Dr. James Harris in the late-Sixties).

So it was with delight that I just recently happened upon two engravings (opposite an above) of the exposed Pinudjem I mummy- clearly based on original photographic images. Source of these "illustrations" is a travel commentary on Egypt published in 1888: C.F. Moberly Bell's From Pharoah to Fellah (pages 63 and 127). That the Brugsch photo (below left) and the three-quarter view of the unwrapped mummy identified as Pinudjem ("Pinoten") are one and the same is obvious. Perhaps the priest-king himself also awaits rediscovery one day- in an unlabeled coffin in Cairo! D. Forbes

The wrapped mummy of 21st Dynasty priest-king Pinudjem I is seen at left in a photograph by German Egyptologist Emile Brugsch. Position of the arms and the angles of head and shoulders are identical with those in the engraving above of a mummy which illustrates the 1888 travel commentary From Pharoah to Fellah, and is identified therein as "Pinotem"(Pinudjem). An engraved profile-view of the head of this individual is also illustrated in the same book (by C.F. Moberly Bell). It would appear that Pinudjem I rivals the famous remains of the first two Thutmoses, Amenhotep II and Thutmoses IV, Seti I and Rameses II in its state of preservation; so it can only be wondered why this mummy was never examined ( or if so, published) by anotomist G. Elliot Smith.

BACK TO KMT CONTENTS