The Egyptian mummy Ta’an is one of the “signature ...
Description: The Egyptian mummy Ta’an is one of the “signature specimens” of the Joseph Moore Museum. According to the history of the museum, J.J. Mills, the president of Earlham College, purchased the mummy from the Government Museum in Cairo in 1889. Mills was under the (false) impression that it was an ancient Egyptian King, and came from a tomb 75 miles south of Cairo called “The Fayum”. The mummy was shipped to Indianapolis, Indiana, where it was picked up and displayed in the home of Joseph R. Evans, a trustee of Earlham College, for a short period of time, then brought 70 miles east to Earlham where it could be seen in time for commencement. After that it was part of the Joseph Moore Museum which was at that time in Lindley Hall. In 1924, Lindley Hall caught on fire and the students and then curator, Dr. Allan D. Hole rushed to save as many specimens as they could, including the mummy. The mummy was then stored in the attic of Carpenter Hall until 1952 when the museum was being built off Dennis Hall. In 1979, the mummy was taken to Reid Memorial Hospital in Richmond, Indiana to be x-rayed. The x-rays revealed that the mummy was actually a woman, approximately 5 feet tall and about 20-22 years old at the time of her death. Growth arrest lines in both her tibiae and femora indicated that there were times in her life when food was scarce or she was sick. She also has all of her teeth, including her wisdom teeth, and they show appropriate wear for the gritty diet of the time (Ancient Egyptian food was often mixed with particles of quartz sand. Since quartz has a hardness of 7 and teeth have an approximate hardness of 5, Ancient Egyptians often had worn teeth as the sand particles wore them down), the x-rays also show that her ribs, vertebrae and clavicle are not in the anatomically correct position. The head and its wrappings are also not attached to her body. The hieroglyphs on the top of her coffin indicate that her name was Ta’an, meaning “beautiful one” and that she was the daughter of Irethorrou, a stolist priest in the town of Ipu. She lived during the Greco-Roman period and probably died around 200 B.C. It should also be noted that Ta’an is one of three mummies currently on display in the state of Indiana. The information above was taken from a placard on the Joseph Moore Museum.