Mummies

This book, along with an overview of the discovery of the tomb of Kha and Merit by Schiaparelli in 1906 – provided by the distinguished director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Christian Greco – gathers a series of papers that explore, in various ways, two mummies housed at the Archaeological Museum of the University of Pavia since the 19th century. Through these contributions, the reader will also gain insight into the main features of the Mummy Project’s research protocol, which serves as an exemplary model of respect for human remains, as well as for their conservation and potential exhibition. The Archaeological Museum of the University of Pavia, founded in 1820 by Pietro Vittorio Aldini (1773–1842), houses a rich collection of artifacts, including prehistoric finds, Etruscan clay votive offerings, painted ceramics from Greece, southern Italy, and Etruria, figurative bronzes, Roman sculptures, Latin inscriptions, a remarkable coin cabinet, and a gallery of plaster casts. The two Egyptian mummies in the collection were gifts from the 1820s and 1830s: the female body was donated by S. Georgiani (from Cairo), and the male head by E.W.P. Rüppell (from Frankfurt).