“A balsamic smell typical of the oriental aromatic resins”. The alleged “unwrapping act” of the Egyptian mummy kept in the Museum of Anatomy of the Universidad Complutense of Madrid

Abstract

Two decades ago the “discovery” in Madrid of the mummy of an Egyptian princess, a daughter of Ramesses II, was announced. The basis for this identification was the alleged act drafted during the process of its unwrapping during the 1880s. Although this recognition was questioned in academic media from the outset, the text supporting it had not yet been analysed. The aims of this article are threefold: to present a critical reading of the supporting act, which was probably written several decades after the session; to clarify information relating to the date and procedures of the unwrapping; and to identify the young mummified woman provided by E. Toda. It is him who brought the body to Spain, along with a collection of Egyptian skulls that he donated to the Faculty of Medicine of San Carlos –beside the mummy– where the unwrapping took place, and his data are the only known reference of the origin of these remains. Rectifying some of the statements made at the time of the “rediscovery” allows the session to be contextualised in the incipient Spanish Egyptology of the nineteenth century.