Usermontu's Secret

[Patrick Waterson]

Remarkably sophisticated Egyptian surgical procedure: http://www.viewzone.com/usermontu.html

This appears to be Usermontu son of Besenmut, first prophet of Montu under Ramses II rather than Usermontu, vizier under Tutankhamen.

Just in case anyone wondered.

Patrick

[Duncan Head]

This appears to be Usermontu son of Besenmut, first prophet of Montu under Ramses II...

With a date of "ca. 630 B.C."?

[Patrick Waterson]

Interesting, yes?

Historians who place Ramses II around 1300 BC were happy with Usermontu until they carbon-dated him.  Naturally, it is unthinkable that Ramses II could floreat around the turn of the 7th-6th century BC.

Patrick

[Duncan Head]

Interesting, yes?

Well, at the moment I lack enough information to be really interested. Does this parse as "a mummy carbon-dated to the 7th century found in a coffin that mentions Usermontu and Ramsese II", or what?

Later edit to answer my own question:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/royalmummies/message/3750 suggests that the name Usermontu is on the coffin, and that the wrappings (which might have also carried some sort of identification) are gone. So what we have is a c.600BC mummy in a Ramses II-era coffin.

[Patrick Waterson]

Precisely. 

As more mummies are carbon-dated, I expect the emergence of a desperate hypothesis that Saite-era persons made a regular, even compulsive, habit of re-using Ramessid coffins.  And maybe tombs.  Sometimes without even re-opening them.

But with the Saite era and the 19th Dynasty being one and the same, and occupying the time slot 663-525 BC, the problem goes away.

Patrick

[Duncan Head]

I would be surprised if people of the later dynasties did not make a regular habit of re-using earlier tombs and coffins.

So, in sum: No, not interesting.

[Patrick Waterson]

I would be surprised if people of the later dynasties did not make a regular habit of re-using earlier tombs and coffins.

It may be worth bearing in mind what such a practice would imply with respect to coffins.

1) Contemporary coffin-makers are put out of a job, or at least bypassed.

2) Someone has to source the previous coffins, which would involve some illegality somewhere and a different kind of burial practice if caught.

3) The re-user would either have to change the texts or be happy with the previous occupant's inscriptions.

4) The local authorities and priesthood would have to be party to the affair (they were supposed to police tombs and conduct funeral ceremonies, respectively).

All in all, except in times of anarchy it is easier, cheaper and safer to have one's own coffin prepared.

Re-using tombs is more understandable, as it saves much trouble of preparation, but even so the Pharaoh and priesthood tended to look down on that sort of thing except when it was occasionally done by themselves: the priest-kinglets of the '21st Dynasty' seem to have made a habit of re-using Libyan tombs (from the ostensible '22nd Dynasty'), Psusennes being the exemplar of this trend (he also re-used Merneptah's '19th Dynasty' sarcophagus, but curiously enough, although '22nd Dynasty' material was used by '21st Dynasty' priests, no '20th Dynasty' material seems to have turned up in '21st Dynasty' burials).

If we need to quantify an assertion that people of later dynastic periods did not make a regular habit of re-using earlier tombs, we need look no further than the Theban tombs list, here http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/thebes/tombs/thebantomblist.html or here http://uk.ask.com/wiki/List_of_Theban_Tombs.  Of the 415 listed tombs, only four (TT30, TT58, TT257 and TT294) are known to have been usurped, less than 1% of the total.

However, as the subject is evidently of no interest, I shall cease to inflict it on the readership.

Patrick