Human Remains; Mummified Body of Padiamun
53.72a
Information
Mummified remains of a male adult named Padiamun, an official of the barque of Amun at Karnak who lived in the late 8th century BC. His name means something like 'he whom Amun gave' and he held the titles 'sailor of the barque of Amun' and 'chief of navigation of the barque of Amun'. Padiamun’s father was also a priest and was named Thatienwensu. Padiamun’s mother was named Taditanebhen. Padiamun’s name and that of his father and mother are inscribed on his coffins. Padiamun’s brother was also a 'chief of navigation of the barque of Amun' and he was named Nehemsumontu (his coffins are now in museums at Boulogne-sur-Mer and Grenoble, France).
Purchased by James Burton in Thebes, possibly in 1825 when he records in his journal that he saw a mummy for sale in the house of a dealer called Piccinini. In 1828 Burton sent the mummy and coffins to Grove House, Regent's Park, London (in the care of George Bellas Greenough). The coffins and mummy were seen by the Scottish antiquarian Robert Hay (1799-1863) in Thebes, about 1826, who called them 'Mr Burton's mummy'.
In September 1851 Padiamun’s mummy was unwrapped at Edgeworth Manor by Henry W Rumsey, a surgeon from Gloucestershire. . The wrappings were roughly replaced after the examination in 1851 and then rewrapped in 1976. In storage are some bags of excess bandages. X-rayed in November 1966 with the following interpretation of the radiographs: “The mouth is slightly open, some of the lower teeth are missing and there is evidence of dental attrition. The cervical spine appears intact. A spatulate object lying within the skull was revealed by radiography, and was extracted via the nasal passage. It is a surgical instrument of recent date, a combined director and scoop, lost by Mr Rumsey in 1851. …The body cavities have been filled with dense packing material which could well contain the four visceral packs” (Gray and Slow, 1968 p. 17). A sample of resin was taken from the top of the cranium in 1999 for analysis which revealed the contents to be a balm of: 61% fat/oil, 0.2% coniferous resin, 1.5% balsam (?) and 38% beeswax (Buckley and Evershed, 2001). CT scanned by Dr R. Loynes in.2012 (Loynes, 2015).