Speak My Name

“Speak my name so that I may live again” was often written on the walls of Egyptian tombs, imploring visitors to speak the names of the dead and make offerings on their behalf. These acts of continued remembrance sustained the dead in the afterlife.

Speak My Name: Investigating Egyptian Mummies explores the coffins and mummies of Meruah, Padiashaikhet, Horus and Mer-Neith-it-es, who lived in Egypt between 1200 BCE and 100 CE and whose mummies and/or coffins are now in the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney.

A multidisciplinary team provides new insights into mummification and coffin manufacture in ancient Egypt through a combination of scientific and Egyptological methods, including CT imaging, skeletal analysis, radiocarbon dating, and digital modelling and illustration. Their discoveries illuminate the personhood of the individuals these mummies and coffins represent. Advances in technology allow us to respectfully learn about their daily lives, including nutrition, health and disease.

Beautifully illustrated, Speak My Name demonstrates how science and archaeology work together to help us better understand the past. By studying the life and death of Meruah, Padiashaikhet, Horus and Mer-Neith-it-es, we speak their names again.

Dr Conni Lord is an Egyptologist at the Chau Chak Wing Museum. She has a Master of Arts (Egyptology) from Macquarie University, Sydney, and a Master of Science (forensic Egyptology) and a cross-disciplinary PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. Her main academic interest is bringing together scientific analysis and historical inquiry in the study of ancient Egyptian human remains and material culture, and then making the results accessible to a range of audiences, including students of all levels.

Dr James Fraser is curator for the ancient Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum, London. As senior curator of the Nicholson Museum (2015–17), University of Sydney, he developed and led the Mummy Project and curated the Mummy Room exhibition for the Chau Chak Wing Museum. James currently directs the British Museum’s excavation of a 4500-year-old olive oil factory in Jordan.

Professor John Magnussen is Professor of Radiology at Macquarie University, Sydney. He graduated in medicine from the University of New South Wales, before completing a PhD in nuclear medicine and biomedical engineering. He has special interests in neurological and cardiac imaging, as well as archaeology and ancient history, using advanced imaging techniques to analyse artefacts and remains from Babylonian times to the present day.

List of illustrations

Director’s foreword

Foreword

1 The Mummy Project at the Chau Chak Wing Museum

2 From Egypt to Australia: the Nicholson Collection at the University of Sydney

3 Wrapping the dead: mummification in ancient Egypt

4 Unwrapping the dead: changing attitudes to mummified remains

5 Radiocarbon dating the Nicholson mummies

6 The coffin of Meruah: Mistress of the House, Chantress of Amun

7 The mummy in the coffin of Meruah

8 The coffin of Padiashaikhet: Beloved of the God

9 The mummy inside the coffin of Padiashaikhet

10 The coffin of Mer-Neith-it-es: Justified

11 The mummy inside the coffin of Mer-Neith-it-es

12 Horus: a perfect burial

13 Creating The Mummy Room at the Chau Chak Wing Museum