Posted on 10/28/2003 8:11:40 AM PST by presidio9
A Egyptian mummy, which is probably pharaoh Ramses I who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, returned home from a U.S. museum after a journey that began with a 19th century grave robbery.
The body, which like that of other ancient Egyptian rulers would originally have been laid in a decorated tomb, was flown into Cairo airport carefully packed in a plain wooden crate.
Witnesses said the box was taken off the plane Saturday draped in an Egyptian flag. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, accompanied the mummy on the flight.
The Michael C. Carlos Museum in the U.S. city of Atlanta acquired the mummy in 1999 but offered to return it after studies by Egyptologists helped by hi-tech scanning equipment indicated it was probably Ramses I, the museum Web site said.
Ramses I was originally a military commander and is thought to have become a pharaoh around 1290 B.C. He ruled for just two years but founded Egypt's 19th dynasty, which included Ramses II, who was on the throne for several decades.
The mummy -- which bears striking facial resemblances to Seti I and Ramses II, Ramses I's immediate successors -- was acquired by the U.S. museum from a museum at Niagara Falls on the U.S.-Canadian border, the Carlos Museum Web site said.
It said a Canadian collector probably bought the corpse around 1860 for the Niagara Falls institution from an Egyptian family who had stumbled on a tomb filled with royal mummies around Deir el-Bahri, an ancient site near Luxor.
The Abdel-Rassul family sold treasures from the site for several years until they were discovered and the tomb officially revealed in 1881. The remaining cache included the empty coffin bearing the name of Ramses I, the Web site said.
It was not the first time Ramses I's body was disturbed.
He was originally buried in the nearby Valley of Kings, but tomb raiders emptied that grave in ancient times. Priests of a later pharaonic dynasty reburied Ramses I near Deir el-Bahri with the bodies of other rulers whose graves were pillaged.
They all look the same to me.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Like this?
My guy in post 4 is better looking.
Just a little false and misleading information for Reuters.
First, the mummy was bought by the Carlos museum after a highly publicized public donation campaign raised the necessary funds. The people of Atlanta opened up their wallets to the Carlos museum to enable them to purchase the mummy so as to have it on display in Atlanta
Second, the Carlos museum surmised that the mummy was Ramses I based on rather circumstantial evidence, and offered to return it if DNA testing show a relationship to the identified Ramses mummies in Egypt. The Egyption's chief showman, Hwass, declined to do any DNA testing saying that the mummy was indeed that of Ramses I and should be returned forthwith (I guess he looked in his crystal ball.) The Carlos museum, selling out all of the citizens who donated for the mummy purchase in the first place, couldn't wait to return it to Egypt in spite of the Egyptions refusing to verify the suspected identity. The Carlos museum, in keeping with the sellout of Atlanta citizens, didn't even allow anyone to take pictures of the mummy prior to its return.
The citizens who opened up their wallets for this bunch of liberal PC jerks to spend their money and the give away the resultshave hopefully learned a lesson about donating to liberal organizations (Carlos museum of part of Emory University, the heart of liberalism in Atlanta)
You think this is bad, you oughta see her face!
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