11 Down

Well, December is here.  There are several great things about the arrival of this month.  First, it means that November is over and I can finally shave my mustache off!  November is also known as 'Movember.'  The point of this is similar to 'No Shave Novemeber' but is commonly restricted to just growing a mustache.  In order to participate, you are supposed to shave the 1st of November and not again until the month is over.  Men participating often get sponsors and all the money raised is donated to men's health causes.  Silly contests for good causes.  It was fun, but to be honest, I hate this thing on my face.  It has to go.

The next thing about the arrival of December is that the weather has finally decided that it is winter.  As such, the temperature ranges from cold as shit to fucking freezing (major bonus nerd points if you can identify that quote).  I commonly wear a long sleeve shirt, hoodie, and my pea coat when going out.  On the really cold days I add a scarf, gloves, and maybe an undershirt.  Its times like these that I am happy I have longer hair again as it really help keeping my head warm.  The rain has been a little bit more than normal this week.  Even got a thunder storm mid week.  The temperature during the day has been in the mid to high forties and close to freezing in the evening.  It dipped below freezing the other day and looks like it will be doing that several more times in the next few weeks.  Snow is becoming more likely as well.

On Monday, I had a meeting with the lady who conducted the original investigation into the mummy and coffin at UCC.  The meeting was mostly pointless, more a show of good will on my part.  I was able to examine some of the original x-rays and CT scans.  Its amazing how far imaging technologies have come in the last decades.  The CT scans were practically worthless.  This meeting just proved how important it is to get a modern high tech evaluation of the material.  I have also been in contact with several of my friends and colleagues back at UCLA who have advised me on several aspect of study that I could possibly pursue with this material.  So while things seem to not be moving forward, they are. Just at an immeasurably slow pace.

On Wednesday night, our class celebrated the holidays by having a potluck dinner and a secret Santa gift exchange.  The secret part of the secret Santa only lasted about 2 days.  Our class sucks at keeping secrets.  Being the only guy, I knew I was in for some type of prank.  Even more so when I learn who had drawn my name.  Of all the ridiculous things I could have imagined, nothing could have prepared me for my gift.  I was given a bunny onesie, complete with hood and ears and a pink heart-shaped tail.  Yep.  Giant bunny onesie. Everyone one else got scarves, stuffed animals, jewelry.  Not me.  Nope.  Even worse, they made me put it on.  It felt exactly like the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie is forced to put on his pick bunny onesie.  Dignity remaining after that night:  none.  Wonder where they got the inspiration. Not cool!

So December is off to an interesting and cold start.  I have only one more week of class before the Christmas break.  That will mark the end of the first semester and I will be that much closer to my master's degree.  I will post some more picture from my trip last weekend soon.  I took over 80 pictures at the Rock of Cashel so I need to shrink that down into a slideshow.  It should be posted in the next few days.

Clonmacnoise

Hore Abbey

10 Down

Well, this week wasn't too special so I will avoid the boring stuff related to school and skip ahead to the end of the week.  Thanksgiving was this past Thursday and unlike all of you, I spent it in class. In fact, I had a quiz that day.  After class, I made myself dinner. No turkey and stuffing for me this year, just a frozen pizza. This Thanksgiving was the first major holiday I have spent away from family and friends.  It was odd.  Thankfully, I did have a long conversation with my mom and was able to Skype with my dad, uncles, and cousins.  It was strange spending a holiday alone.  But, I guess that is what I am to expect for the rest of my stay here.

On Friday, all the postgrad students had a trip to Dublin.  We were going to visit several places that could aid in our research.  These places included the National Museum, the National Library, National Monuments Services, and the National Archives.  The trip was a huge waste of time for our class.  Nothing about bones was even discussed.  Furthermore, we didn't even visit the location where the human remains collections are stored in the National Museum.  The trip was an even bigger waste for me as nothing of any value relating to mummies was even mentioned.  The museum was at least slightly interesting.  After a very brief tour of the collections stored underground in the vaults of the museum (all the stuff not on display) we were given only a few minutes to tour the museum until our next tour at the National Library.  Our class ran straight to the room with the bog bodies.  Sadly, I did not have my camera so no pictures.  After a brief glace at the bog bodies I went upstairs to see the small Egyptian exhibit.  I was able to spend only a few minutes in the exhibit attempting to learn about 26th dynasty mummification.  I will hopefully be making another trip out there sooner rather than later to spend more time in the museum. I will be sure to bring my camera that time.

The rest of the weekend was spent on a trip with the Archaeology Society.  We left Saturday morning, visited several sites in the south of Ireland, spent the night in a hostel, and traveled to another site on Sunday before heading back.  I will post pictures in a post following this one.  Saturday was spent in and around the town of Cashel. The main place we visited was the Rock of Cashel.  This large hill (actually a limestone outcropping) was the site where Irish kings were crowned.  Nearby, was an large abbey and the remains of an old ring fort.  You can't really make out the ring fort, just the mound it once stood on.  Sometimes archaeology requires a lot of imagination.  After our tours of the sites, we headed back to the hostel where myself and Simon (another member of the society) somehow became elected chefs and cooked dinner for the whole group of 15.  Cooking food for 15 people on a crap stove and using pots with no handles was quite the adventure.  Amazingly, dinner was prepared without any major injuries and no one got sick as a result.  After dinner we headed to the pub and watched the rugby match.  On Sunday, we traveled north to the midlands and visited one of the oldest and best preserved church sites in Ireland, Clonmacnoise.  It was a beautiful place located right on the banks of the Shannon.  The weather was freezing, but it was quite the picturesque trip.  After our tour, we all got on the bus for the long ride back to cork.

So that was my week.  Spent 6+ hours per day on a bus and celebrated Thanksgiving alone with a frozen pizza.  Sometimes I wonder if coming here was the right choice. Sadly, the more time I spend here, the more I lean towards this being the wrong decision.  Sure, I will be getting my master's degree, but at what cost?  I guess this is just a period of doubt and I am sure it will pass.  Just second guessing myself.  Ok, this post just got depressing. I'm going to end it now.  Enjoy the pictures!

An Egyptian Mummy and Coffin

I guess it is time for me to let you all in on the little secret that I have been hinting at over the last few weeks. I am sorry for this, but I had to be elusive as this matter does have the potential for massive political ramifications. I wanted to be sure that this project was going to happen before I let you all in on it. As this project has some elements that the University would rather not have publicized I will keep my discussion about the project to my personal involvement and basic information about it. Furthermore, as this is going to be my thesis project, I will not be elaborating on much of the details via this blog. I am more then happy to discuss the project in greater detail in private (email, skype, etc.). OK, enough of that crap!


My project involves the examination of a 2,500 year old mummy and coffin from Late/ Ptolemaic Period Egypt (747-30 BC). There are several aspects which I am going to study. The primary goal of this examination is that of conservation. The mummy itself is in poor condition. I will be documenting any and all postmortem damage and providing recommendations on how best to halt or even reverse the damage that has been sustained during the 100+ years since its excavation near Thebes, Egypt. The purpose for this is to allow for further studies to be carried out without further harm and damage to the material. Eventually, I would like to see the material officially curated into the college museum, but that is unlikely due to its poor condition. The next phase of the project builds off the first. I will be recording and analyzing the funerary texts inscribed and painted along the outside and inside of the coffin. Much about the coffin's original occupant would have been written on the coffin including his/her name, their occupation, as well as instructions for the afterlife. These texts will be compared with the Book of the Dead as well as several other funerary texts popular at the time. Lastly, I hope to preform a high tech investigation of the mummy. This would include 3D CT scanning and digital X-rays which, in turn, would allow me to conduct a virtual unwrapping of the mummy. I am also hoping to have portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) preformed on several spots within and upon the mummy and coffin in hopes of understanding the elemental composition of the paints and resins used during the mummification and coffin construction.

Much of my time is currently spent reading books on this subject matter.  As this is the first Egyptian mummy I have worked with I have a lot of learning to do in regards to Egyptian funerary practices, religion, and technology.

The primary reason there is so much sensitivity surrounding this mummy and coffin is because its history is practically unknown. No one is sure exactly how it came to University College Cork. Previous investigations have hinted that it arrived some time between 1890-1910. It was originally stored in the Anatomy Department until some time in the 1920s. During this time, for reasons not entirely known, the mummy was stored (or hidden) under the floorboards of the Pathology Department. It wasn't until a remodeling of the department in the 1970s that the mummy was 're-discovered' and moved to the central library on campus, where it has been ever since. A study was conducted on the mummy in the late 1980s by a former master's student in the archaeology department. Since then, no one has had much contact with the mummy until a month ago. As you read in the newspaper article I posted some time back, Egyptian officials visited the campus to examine the mummy and determine its fate. With the opening of a brand new museum in Cairo scheduled for 2013, Egypt is attempting to collect all the mummies from various museums around the world in hopes have centralizing Egyptian archaeology in Egypt.  I have many issues with this, and their approach, but that is another rant for another time.  However, the recent events in Egypt have put a stall on everything.  Only time will determine the true fate of the material at UCC.

So that's the big secret I have been keeping from you all.  I will update you on my studies as best I can via this blog.  If you have specific questions about the mummy, I would email them to me.  For general questions, I am more than happy to answer them publicly.  That way I can discuss it at further length with the potential consequences of a public discussion.  

Below is a picture of the coffin.  As you can see, it's not in great shape.  I'm hoping to fix that.

Egyptian coffin at UCC. Photo: UCC