Resources
Classroom Ideas
Thirteen Things
Mummy of Hornedjitef
Some ideas for the classroom related to Jack Trelawny author visits and books.
The following audio, image, and text resources can be used with Jack's historical fiction series inspired by the true stories of 13 real objects from the joint British Museum and BBC radio podcast project, A History of the World in 100 Objects. This series of adventures is called:
Thirteen Things
Thirteen Things
Mummy of Hornedjitef
(Audio Resource: 15 minutes)
(Audio Resource: 15 minutes)
Hornedjitef
Hornedjitef was an important person.
In Ancient Egypt, priests were the only people, apart from the king, allowed into temples to carry out sacred rituals (religious ceremonies) every day. One of the priests' tasks was to wash and 'feed' temple statues of Egypt's gods.
Because of his high rank, Hornedjitef was almost certainly given a splendid funeral, and his mummy was made with special care.
It wasn't only people who were mummified. The Egyptians also made mummies of ibises (birds), cats, crocodiles and gazelles.
Making a mummy
You are looking at the face of a priest from Ancient Egypt.
His name was Hornedjitef, and he was a priest at the Temple of Amun at Karnak. He died about 220 BC, and was buried at Thebes. This is his mummy mask.
As part of elaborate funeral arrangements, the mask was placed over a dead person's head, like a helmet.
The Ancient Egyptians made mummies of dead bodies, to preserve them and make sure that a person's spirit or 'ba' moved on into the afterlife.
Making a mummy took seventy days. During the process, some body parts including the brain were removed and placed in jars; the body was treated with salt and chemicals. The treatment dried the body to stop decay.
The finished mummy was wrapped in linen cloth, and the painted mask put over the face, before the last funeral rites. It was then put into a coffin, and buried in a tomb.
Older than he looks
The face on Hornedjitef's mask is that of a young man with golden skin.
This is not a picture of Hornedjitef in life. It's him as a god in the afterlife. When the priest died, he was an old man.
Scientists examined this mummy with a CT scanner, and found signs of arthritis and other 'ageing' problems in the bones - Hornedjitef probably walked stiffly, perhaps with a stick.
Around the brow of the mask is a magic spell, put there to make sure that the head would not be separated from the body after death. Egyptians feared that if this did happen, a dead person might not make the journey to the afterlife and join the gods.
Hornedjitef was an important person.
In Ancient Egypt, priests were the only people, apart from the king, allowed into temples to carry out sacred rituals (religious ceremonies) every day. One of the priests' tasks was to wash and 'feed' temple statues of Egypt's gods.
Because of his high rank, Hornedjitef was almost certainly given a splendid funeral, and his mummy was made with special care.
It wasn't only people who were mummified. The Egyptians also made mummies of ibises (birds), cats, crocodiles and gazelles.
Making a mummy
You are looking at the face of a priest from Ancient Egypt.
His name was Hornedjitef, and he was a priest at the Temple of Amun at Karnak. He died about 220 BC, and was buried at Thebes. This is his mummy mask.
As part of elaborate funeral arrangements, the mask was placed over a dead person's head, like a helmet.
The Ancient Egyptians made mummies of dead bodies, to preserve them and make sure that a person's spirit or 'ba' moved on into the afterlife.
Making a mummy took seventy days. During the process, some body parts including the brain were removed and placed in jars; the body was treated with salt and chemicals. The treatment dried the body to stop decay.
The finished mummy was wrapped in linen cloth, and the painted mask put over the face, before the last funeral rites. It was then put into a coffin, and buried in a tomb.
Older than he looks
The face on Hornedjitef's mask is that of a young man with golden skin.
This is not a picture of Hornedjitef in life. It's him as a god in the afterlife. When the priest died, he was an old man.
Scientists examined this mummy with a CT scanner, and found signs of arthritis and other 'ageing' problems in the bones - Hornedjitef probably walked stiffly, perhaps with a stick.
Around the brow of the mask is a magic spell, put there to make sure that the head would not be separated from the body after death. Egyptians feared that if this did happen, a dead person might not make the journey to the afterlife and join the gods.
Learning from the people of the past
The bodies of people from the remote past rarely survive as anything other than nameless bones. The ancient Egyptian priest Hornedjitef is an exception.
Because of their custom of preserving the dead body through mummification and recording the name in writing, many ancient Egyptians are among us today in museums, with skin, hair, fingernails and identities all intact. We can even see the faces of the great kings who ‘made history’, noticing that behind their heroic portrayals in sculpture there were real people with familiar human strengths and weaknesses.
Looking at a mummy is a powerful and emotive experience, one which can transport us back instantly through thousands of years, making us feel close to them. Yet at the same time we are aware of how different their lives must have been from our own.
Beyond these startling encounters, Egyptian mummies have much to teach us. Sealed within their wrappings and painted coffins, they are a storehouse of information, most of which was never recorded in writing. Modern scientific techniques allow us to look beneath the wrappings and to gather this evidence about life and death – how long people lived, what they looked like, what illnesses they suffered from, how they died, how they were mummified.
In this way we can picture Hornedjitef as a man of mature years, enjoying a privileged life as a ‘servant of the god’, yet suffering from the discomforts of arthritis like any modern man. The writings on his coffins also tell us when he lived and reveal the religious beliefs and knowledge of the world which learned men had at that time, including lists of stars which reflect the birth of the science of astronomy.
The learning process does not stop. When Hornedjitef’s tomb was discovered in the 1820s the hieroglyphic script had just been deciphered. Much of what is written on his coffins was still a mystery then, but now we can read it all. And after we are gone, he will still remain, unchanged, revealing more about his world as science finds better ways to gather the answers to its questions.
How exciting it would be to know what our successors might learn from him a hundred years from now.
John Taylor, Curator, British Museum
The bodies of people from the remote past rarely survive as anything other than nameless bones. The ancient Egyptian priest Hornedjitef is an exception.
Because of their custom of preserving the dead body through mummification and recording the name in writing, many ancient Egyptians are among us today in museums, with skin, hair, fingernails and identities all intact. We can even see the faces of the great kings who ‘made history’, noticing that behind their heroic portrayals in sculpture there were real people with familiar human strengths and weaknesses.
Looking at a mummy is a powerful and emotive experience, one which can transport us back instantly through thousands of years, making us feel close to them. Yet at the same time we are aware of how different their lives must have been from our own.
Beyond these startling encounters, Egyptian mummies have much to teach us. Sealed within their wrappings and painted coffins, they are a storehouse of information, most of which was never recorded in writing. Modern scientific techniques allow us to look beneath the wrappings and to gather this evidence about life and death – how long people lived, what they looked like, what illnesses they suffered from, how they died, how they were mummified.
In this way we can picture Hornedjitef as a man of mature years, enjoying a privileged life as a ‘servant of the god’, yet suffering from the discomforts of arthritis like any modern man. The writings on his coffins also tell us when he lived and reveal the religious beliefs and knowledge of the world which learned men had at that time, including lists of stars which reflect the birth of the science of astronomy.
The learning process does not stop. When Hornedjitef’s tomb was discovered in the 1820s the hieroglyphic script had just been deciphered. Much of what is written on his coffins was still a mystery then, but now we can read it all. And after we are gone, he will still remain, unchanged, revealing more about his world as science finds better ways to gather the answers to its questions.
How exciting it would be to know what our successors might learn from him a hundred years from now.
John Taylor, Curator, British Museum