Mummy of a Man with His Cartonnage Coverings
Unknown · Ptolemaic period, 332-30 BC (attributed on style)
A man lies wrapped in linen bandages, his body one metre sixty-six long, with pieces of painted cartonnage fixed over the wrappings: a mask and pectoral over the chest, a cover over the legs and a case for the feet. Cartonnage is linen stiffened with plaster, and its surface is painted with figures of gods and hieroglyphic formulas that ask for offerings and name the dead man. Look at the pattern of the bandages, wound diagonally in overlapping strips, and at the little sandals painted on the foot case, so that he could walk into the afterlife shod.
The mummy dates from the Ptolemaic period, in the last three centuries before Christ, when the art of embalming had reached its most elaborate stage. It belonged to the collection of the British consul Henry Salt and was purchased in eighteen twenty-six for the newly founded Egyptian museum in the Louvre. Displayed at the centre of the room devoted to mummification, it shows the finished result of a seventy-day process that turned a body into an eternal image.
Did You Know? The bandaging alone, wound in overlapping strips to form a lozenge pattern, used up many dozens of metres of linen.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.