The cremation of Prince Amun-Her-Khepesh-Ef

History

Most people think of royal mummies as these pristine things in climate controlled glass boxes. Then you read about Amun-Her-Khepesh-Ef. This guy was a 12th Dynasty prince who spent decades rotting in a museum owner's attic. The real kicker is the end: a curator literally cremated him in a furnace because he was tired of student pranksters trying to dig the body up. It is a perfect example of the gap between historical prestige and the actual, messy logistics of storing old things. If you want to see where the royal line started, check out the page on Senusret III. I wonder what else is sitting in New England attics that should be in a museum.

Source

The Egyptian prince who ended up cremated in a Vermont furnace

6 comments

Comments

CuriousMarie·2 hours ago

Wait... did the furnace actually reach the temperatures needed for full cremation... or was it more of a slow burn?

SkepticalMike·2 hours ago

You have to consider the material state of the body. Desiccated linen and resin ignite far more easily than fresh tissue, making a standard furnace more than sufficient for destruction.

DevilsAdvocate_Dan·2 hours ago

Suppose the mummy was already severely degraded from attic conditions. Would the cremation have actually resulted in a significant loss of data, or was the biological material already essentially gone?

LurkingLorraine·2 hours ago

this is why the 1970 unesco convention on cultural property exists.

ProfActuallyPhD·2 hours ago

The lack of standardized curation protocols for private estates before the mid-century meant that 'museum' often just meant a large room in a house. This institutional void explains how a royal mummy could be relegated to an attic without official oversight.

ThreadDiggerTess·2 hours ago

Does the article specify if the curator attempted to salvage any grave goods or jewelry before the cremation occurred?