Nodjmet
Wife of HPA Herihor
fl. c. 1075 BCE
Provenance: DB 320 (in side room D)
Discovery Date: 1881
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61087
Article text from the Theban Royal Mummy Project:
The mummy of Nodjmet was partly unwrapped by Gaston Maspero on 1 June 1886. G. E. Smith continued the unwrapping on 13 September 1906, but only removed the remaining wrappings from areas of the body that were of special relevance to his study of ancient Egyptian embalming practices.
Smith points out that, as one of the earliest mummies from the 21’st Dynasty, Nodjmet’s is of special interest because it provides one of the first examples of the newer mummifying techniques initiated by the embalmers, probably inspired by their inspection of earlier mummies that had been restored and reburied in the caches. This mummy represents a transitional phase in the adoption of the new embalming methods. No attempt was made to insert materials under the skin via incisions, as in the case of later 21’st Dynasty mummies. Instead, the embalmers applied padding, wax, and other cosmetics directly to the surface of the skin in order to give the mummy a more life-like appearance. In order to fill out Nodjmet’s face, her mouth was tightly packed with sawdust and her nose filled with resin. Artificial eyebrows, made of hair, were attached to her face with some type of adhesive substance, possibly resin. A wig was added, which gives the mummy a youthful look by concealing the few remaining gray hairs on the head.
Nodjmet had been buried with two funerary papyri, one of which was stolen (presumably by the Abd el-Rassuls) and sold. Maspero states in his 1905 Guide du Visiteur (to the Cairo Museum) that parts of the stolen papyrus (which Nodjmet had jointly owned with her husband Herihor) had ended up in the collections of the Louvre and the British Museum. (See photo of a vignette from the British Museum papyrus at right.) The Osiris shroud covering the mummy also concealed ancient damage. Nodjmet had gashes on her forehead, cheeks and nose, probably caused when thieves had cut through her original wrappings in search of valuables. Impressions of jewelry on her right arm indicate that they had found and stolen some objects. Nodjmet’s legs were also badly broken, her wrists were fractured, and her left humerus was broken near the shoulder.
Some traces of jewelry still remain on Nodjmet’s mummy. Smith discovered several bracelets, composed variously of tiny carnelian beads carved into the shapes of spheres and lotus buds, lapis lazuli beads, and gold cylinders, still in situ on Nojmet’s wrists. Her artificial eyes are also in place (and, to some, give this mummy a “doll-like” appearance.) Smith states that this is the earliest known use of artificial eyes in a mummy. (However, see his comments on the artificial eyes, made of onions, used in the mummy of Ramesses IV. Smith also noted that linen had been packed under the eyelids of Tuyu and into the eye sockets of Ramesses III in an attempt to fashion artificial eyes. When he discussed Nodjmet’s eyes, Smith probably meant that they were the first he had seen that had been made out of semi precious stone.) X-rays show that a heart scarab is still in situ in her chest along with figures of the four sons of Horus.
The traditional embalming plate was not used in this case, and the embalmers had simply filled the embalming incision with a wax plug. The body cavity had been packed with sawdust. Smith reported that he could find no trace of viscera in the body cavity, so, in Nodjmet’s case, the viscera had probably been placed in canopics rather than reinserted into the body cavity as is the case with subsequent 21’st Dynasty mummies. She was found along with an Osiris figure and a wooden canopic box. Nodjmet lay in two nested coffins (CG61024) that had originally been made for an unidentified man. The outer coffin had its gilding completely adzed off and eye inlays removed. The inner coffin had received slightly different treatment. Most of its gilded surfaces were also adzed off, the gold covered hands removed, and the eye inlays taken out. But the inscriptions and religious symbols remained intact, indicating that the coffin had been stripped by necropolis officials and priests rather than by thieves.
(Source Bibliography: CCR, 40ff; CP, 175; DRN, 201, 207, 213; GdV, 336 f.; JARCE 16 (1979) 66f.; MiAE, 127, 230, 329, ills. 133, 143, 429; MMM, 37, ill. 36; MR, 569f., 592f., 677; RM, 94ff; XRA, 3D3-3ES; XRP, 171, 172, ills. 48, 49.)