Archaeology Magazine - Egypt Special Issue - 29

images had suggested. Rather, her throat had been stuﬀed ncy with dense wads of packing material—the consistency of me mud, soil, or sand mixed with chips of rock and some d kind of binder—that extended into her mouth and t covered her bottom teeth. (Discovered throughout f the body, this packing material, along with cloth of diﬀerent densities and shapes, was used to plump up the corpse and make it more attractive in the afterlife.) In addition, Vannier and Teeter identiﬁed k more roughly oval-shaped amulets: one at the neck e and one on the chest, which were expected, and one at the back, a highly unusual place.

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espite the hubbub surrounding the scans, Teeter did not want the exhibition t to be a “mummy show.” “I mean, it’s about a mummy, but I wanted to remind yppeople that the ancient Egypnt tians had a very vibrant society and a very vibrant life. They loved life!” She gathered some 70 artifacts from the Oriental Institute’s holdings that date to around Meresamun’s time to illustrate what the life of the n priestess might have been like. A wooden harp and an nts ivory clapper are instruments tain priestesses played to entertain odile, the gods; bird, cat, crocodile, present and lizard mummies represent d cults for which they created music. Faience necklaces, bronze hairpins, sed and tiny alabaster jars used to store cosmetics and ointments possibly reﬂect Meresamun’s sense of style; fertility charms show how she may al have wished for a child. And papyri detail the legal rights mpletely ancient Egyptian women enjoyed, which were completely equal with men’s. g According to a hieroglyphic inscription running down n her coﬃn, Meresamun—whose name means “Amun Loves riestessHer”—belonged to the highest of three classes of priestessANCIENT EGYPT —

musicia She was thus allowed in the interior musicians. of the temple, the most sacred area where Am Amun, the preeminent deity of Thebes, w was associated with the state and the who k king, lived. Not many priests and prieste esses were permitted in this holy space, in which a statue of the god was clothed a presented food oﬀerings, and where, and ac according to Teeter’s new research, only tw musical instruments were allowed, the two m menat and the sistrum. The menat, a beaded collar worn a around the neck, would have been taken oﬀ, slung over the shoulder, and shaken to proGener Generations of duce a soft sound, like priest priestess-musicians were trained by t a gently played maraca. their mothers to m The sistrum, a handheld play the sistrum, bronze rattle with disks a bro bronze rattle (show here with (shown that clinked against its disks missing). each other, produced a This example depicts exa noise the ancient Egypthe head of Hathor, a goddes associated goddess tians associated with with wom women, love, plucking papyri from a dance, an music. and marsh, a mythological The wall painting at left sh shows how ritual sacred to the godit was sha shaken. dess Hathor, mistress of dance and music. “ There’s something about t sistrum being the interface between the a woman and the deity,” says Teeter, who studied woma hundred of depictions of priestess-musicians hundreds on the walls of Theban tombs and temples. When priestesses exited the temple, she found, p they began using a much wider range of instrubega ments, inclu including round-frame drums, lutes, and side-blown ﬂutes. “It’s astou astounding how much we can reconstruct about Meres Meresamun’s career and lifestyle using a combination of old-fashioned Egyptology and the latest imaging technology. We’re able to see her so clearly tec now,” says Teeter.“And we have such a huge data set T that those who look at it are going to start reevaluating their own interpretations of mummies.” ■

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Archaeology Magazine - Egypt Special Issue

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