Women Crush Wednesday: Baroda Mummy

This week let’s look at a mummy located in Varodra, India! This mummy is the best-preserved Egyptian mummy in India, so I’m really excited to cover it!

Life

This is the mummy of a female who lived during the Ptolemaic Period, most likely during the reign of Ptolemy II (c. 230 B.C.E.). Nothing is known about her, except that she was most likely from the upper classes based on the type of mummification she received.

It is unclear from the sources if the mummy has no inscriptions, or if no research has been conducted on them. I could find no individual picture of the mummy from the top, so it is hard to know.

Provenance

The mummy was purchased by Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the ruler of the city of Gujarat, India from a museum in New York in 1895. It is not clear what museum this was. Believe it or not, it was purchased for $175. The mummy supposedly had a mummy mask, but its location is unknown.

It is currently located at the Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery which was established originally in 1887. It didn’t open until 1921 because many of the objects for the museum were delayed in Europe during World War I. The mummy is one of the centerpieces of the Egypt-Babylonian Gallery. You can watch a short tour of the museum below!

Mummy

The mummy is in relatively good condition, mainly in comparison to the other Egyptian mummies in India. The linen wrappings are still intact except for the toes. As the mummy is quite heavy which indicates that its internal abdominal padding is dense. X-ray reconstructions suggest that she was around 20 years old when she died.

Her brain was removed, most likely through her nose. And two possible fractures were revealed during X-rays. The radius and ulna of one of her arms were broken. There is no other evidence of diseases or trauma that would explain her death. She was 148 cm tall.

Unfortunately, the mummy has had a bad history of preservation problems. In September 1998, it was reported that a museum attendant accidentally sucked up part of the mummy with a vacuum cleaner. Apparently, he opened the glass case and believed that it could use a good clean. The damage was a linen bandage sagging, the paint peeling off of two of the toes, and her nose had unknown damage.

As I mentioned the mummy is still completely wrapped except for the toes. That is because someone unwrapped the toes around 50 years ago. This led to a buildup of white fungi. This likely occurred because the museum has a very high concentration of aeromycoflora. A report was made in 1999/2000 about this fungus on the toes and how this mummy needed a better case. The report agreed that it needed an oxygen-free glass chamber if it was going to be conserved. As of 2009, this case has not been replaced and it is unclear if it has been now.