Tag Archives: mummychamber

Repairing the Book of the Dead

Repairing papyrus can be a little like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. In order to make sense of the many small pieces at hand, we take advantage of the various examination techniques we have here in the lab. One method … Continue reading

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Lady Gautseshenu goes to the Hospital

Yesterday, a team of curators, conservators, and art packers and handlers took the last of our human mummies to North Shore University Hospital to be CT scanned.  (See Lisa Bruno and Ed Bleiberg’s blogs about the previous mummies). Lady Gautseshenu, … Continue reading

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Radiocarbon (carbon-14) Dating of Book of the Dead of Sobekmose

Our research to further understand the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose continues. Carbon-14 (C-14) dating was one of the first scientific analytical techniques that we employed to confirm the date for this piece, thought to be … Continue reading

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Looking for Adhesives and Identifying Binders in the Book of the Dead Using FTIR

Another scientific analytical technique commonly used in art conservation is called Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy, or FTIR.  The Brooklyn Museum’s Paper Conservation Lab employed this technique to continue analysis of the Brooklyn Museum’s Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of … Continue reading

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Analyzing Pigments in the Book of the Dead Using XRF Spectroscopy

One of the many scientific analytical techniques used in art conservation is called X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF.  The Paper Conservation Lab here at the Brooklyn Museum is using this technique to study the Brooklyn Museum’s Book of the Dead … Continue reading

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IR and UV Examination of Egyptian Papyrus

Following Rachel’s previous discussion on pigments and inks used in our Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose, I will begin here our discussion of the different examination and analytical techniques we employ in conservation and the … Continue reading

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Pigments and Inks Typically Used on Papyrus

This is the third blog post on the Museum’s extraordinary New Kingdom papyrus, the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose.  My colleagues previously posted blogs on what exactly papyrus is, how it was made and formatted into … Continue reading

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The Egyptian Papyrus “Book”

Once a papyrus sheet was formed it was joined together with other sheets to form long rolls. The papyrus roll format dates back to ~3,000 BCE and there is little evidence individual sheets were ever used alone. Smaller papyrus documents … Continue reading

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Making Papyrus in the Conservation Lab

Before we began treatment on the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose papyrus scroll, the staff of the paper conservation lab decided to make our own papyrus sheets.  As with any conservation treatment that we do, … Continue reading

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Papyrus: Secret of the Egyptians

Although the making of papyrus as a writing support is almost 5,000 years old, not a single written description by the Egyptians exist to explain their process. Pictorial displays in tomb murals and carvings never reveal the process of sheet … Continue reading

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Live Tweeting Mummy Wrapping and Conservator Q&A Tuesday!

If you were following us on Twitter last June, you probably remember us live tweeting as a group of mummies were taken to North Shore University Hospital for CT scanning.  Tomorrow, our conservators are going to be in our conservation … Continue reading

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Animal Mummy Update

Those of you who are 1stfans got an introduction to the animal mummy research project being done at the Museum when we held an informal presentation about the project to look at some x-radiographs and see some animal mummies up … Continue reading

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Male and Female Mummies: Bad Grammar, Bad X-rays, Bad Judgment

It should not be so hard to tell a woman from a man. Yet three of the five male mummies from the Brooklyn Museum that were CT-scanned in the last eighteen months at North Shore University Hospital were at one … Continue reading

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Mummy Transport

As some of you may have seen from the recent press coverage, we took four of our Egyptian human mummies to North Shore University Hospital to be CT scanned—short for computed tomography.  Although the bodies were well preserved with the … Continue reading

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Live Tweeting Mummy CT Scanning Today!

We’ve got something very cool going on!  Follow us on Twitter today to get our updates—we are going to be tweeting live as curators and conservators take four mummies in the Museum’s collection to the North Shore University Hospital for … Continue reading

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