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Dinand Library's Archives and Special Collections is home to many rare and unusual publications, photography, artwork, objects and artifacts. But for most of the past six years, the library has been without what is perhaps the most remarkable part of its collection: a 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy and its coffin.
The 29-inch mummy of a young girl—named Tanetpahekau (which translates as "daughter of the magic god")—first arrived at Holy Cross in 1896 through a donation by alumnus Rev. Peter Skelly. After more than a century, the mummy and the coffin had begun to deteriorate and became extremely fragile. In 2000, James E. Hogan, director of library services, took action, approaching Rika Smith McNally, a conservator of objects and sculpture. McNally then contacted the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, which offers a graduate degree program in art conservation, in conjunction with the University of Delaware. Winterthur agreed to study and restore the mummy and coffin without charge if the College would allow the museum to keep the artifact for two years.
Conservators told Holy Cross that mummies of children are rare—and that, at 36 inches, the decorated coffin was one of the smallest they had seen. Based on analysis, the Winterthur experts believe the girl's approximate date of death to be 650 B.C. The mummy is wrapped in brown linen that, in turn, is covered in a net of blue-green ceramic beads. The wooden case is painted in blue, black, red, yellow and white; hieroglyphics decorate the case lid.
The mummy and coffin are currently on exhibit in the main reading room of Dinand Library and can be seen during normal library hours, until May 2006.
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