Description (Physical description)
Description for Z 44764 [A-B]: 'Anthropoid coffin of rather square form, the front surface being almost flat with the face pegged on. Feet built up. Lid held together by two rusted iron bands, screwed on. These formerly hinged on the trough, but are now longer affixed to latter, which now has a screwed-on glazed cover. Much stucco lost with noticeable insect damage.'
Event Date
Author: maa

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Context (Field collection)
Collected by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in 1739 and donated to Trinity College Library in the same year.
Event Date 1739
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Context (References)
Salmon (Mr). (1748). The Foreigner's Companion Through the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and the Adjacent Counties. London: Printed for William Owen. p. 66
Event Date 1748
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Context (References)
Montagu, John and Cooke, John. (1799). A Voyage Performed by the Late Earl of Sandwich, Round the Mediterranean, in the Years 1738 and 1739. London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies
Event Date 1799
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Context (References)
Anon. (1851). The History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Cambridgeshire. Peterborough: Robert Gardner. p. 125
Event Date 1851
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Context (Related Documents)
Note found with Z 44764-Z 44765, and now stored with the catalogue cards, reads: 'Recorded by AmD [Aidan Mark Dodson]. 9/7/87' with Dodson's signature.
Event Date 9/7/1987
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card for Z 44764 [A-B] in Aidan Dodson's hand: 'Wooden outer coffin. Anthropoid, of rather 'square' form. Front almost flat with face pegged on. In poor condition, stucco coming away, insect damage. Held together with screwed-on iron bands, which were fitted with hinges to allow coffin to be opened; lid and trough now separated. Contains mummy Z 44765.'
Event Date 9/7/1987
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Context (Analysis)
Aidan Dodson dated the coffin and the mummy it contains as Ptolemaic/Roman when he catalogued them on 9 July 1987.
Event Date 9/7/1987
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Conservation (Assessment Only)
CON.2023.5740 | Assessment Only
Event Date 12/7/2023
Author: Ayesha Fuentes

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Context (Analysis)
The mummified person and wooden coffin (Z 44764-5) are the 'Egyptian mummy & case' noted in the list of artefacts deposited at MAA by Trinity College Library in 1914 (see O.11a.4/8 in Trinity Library and FG1/2/10 in MAA archive). It appears that they never received an MAA accession number, nor were they in the 1914 Annual Report list of the deposit (which is not exhaustive). By the time they were registered and catalogued by Aidan Dodson in 1987 they had lost their association with Trinity Library, and have only now been identified as part of the 1914 deposit. However, by the time of their deposit the mummified person and the coffin had already become disassociated with their collection history: they came to MAA with no information regarding their collection or findspot. This has been traced thanks to an entry in 'The Foreigner's Companion Through the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford' in 1748 by Mr Salmon in which he describes 'amongst other Curiosities in [Trinity College] Library are an Egyptian Mummy and Ibis, given to the Society by the present Earl of Sandwich, on his Return from his Travels' (p. 66). This association between the Egyptian mummy in the Trinity Library and the Earl of Sandwich is mentioned again in an 8 July 1847 newspaper Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette article about Queen Victoria visiting ‘curiosities in [Trinity] library’ including ‘an Egyptian mummy, given by the Earl of Sandwich on his return from his travels’. The most detailed description thus far identified is in the History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Cambridgeshire' ... 'an Egyptian mummy, in very fine preservation, the outside being curiously gilt and painted' (1851, p. 125). The mummy and its coffin are mentioned regularly in 19th century guidebooks, locating it at the foot of the stairs to the Library. By the time of the 1914 transfer to MAA, however, the connection to John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich and the collection date of 1739 had apparently been lost. There is no record of the mummified person and coffin entering the Trinity College Library in their archive, although according to the Trinity Librarian, Nicolas Bell, this is not uncommon. In Montagu's posthumous publication, 'A Voyage Round the Mediterranean', the editor John Cooke quotes a letter from Montagu in which he lists some of the items he brought back from his 1739 visit to Egypt, including 'two mummies and eight embalmed ibis's from the catacombs of Memphis' (p. iii). It appears certain, therefore, that this mummified person and coffin are one of the two that Montagu brought back from his travels, and almost immediately donated to Trinity College, where he had been a student. The records have therefore been updated with this information.
Event Date 11/10/2024
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Conservation (Assessment Only)
CON.2023.5740 | Assessment Only
Event Date 11/10/2024
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Description (Physical description)
Base of an anthropoid wooden coffin containing an unknown person (Z 44765), with glazed cover, likely Victorian. The sides are constructed of long planks, overlapping at the shoulders, with a rectangular plank at the head and a keystone-shaped plank at the feet; the base is constructed of horizontal planks; traces of stucco throughout. Iron bands across the base in two places once affixed it to the lid (Z 44764 A); iron nails throughout the coffin, in addition to original wooden pegs; traces of modern plaster inside and between some boards. The frame of the glazed cover is screwed directly into the sides of the base. Domed glass panel over the face of the mummified person, framed by radiating panels; angled glazed panels down the length of the coffin, off a central mullion; trapezoidal casing over the feet, glass now broken.
Event Date 16/10/2024
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

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Conservation (Remedial)
CON.2024.6085 | Remedial
Event Date 1/11/2024
Author: Ayesha Fuentes

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Conservation (Remedial)
CON.2024.6085 | Remedial
Event Date 1/11/2024
Author: Ayesha Fuentes