Contributions to the Provenance of the Zagreb Mummy

Abstract

The famous Zagreb Mummy, on whose linen wrappings the longest known Etruscan text called Liber linteus Zagrebiensis (“The linen book of Zagreb”) was written, came to the Archaeological museum Zagreb together with an Egyptian papyrus containing fragmental texts of The Book of the Dead. For almost 160 years experts have been trying to answer the questions of the relation of this Egyptian mummy to the Etruscan text. The Papyrus Zagreb 602 written in hieratic script is one of the important traces in this research. It is in good condition and many small fragments are almost impossible to put together, but the vignette with the names of two persons to whom it was dedicated is preserved. The text reveals that the priest of the god Khnum, the nobleman Perekh-Khons was buried together with his wife Nesi-Khons probably in Upper Egypt during the end of the Late or in the Ptolemaic period. The date generally fits to the C 14 dating of the mummy, but no other data taken from it points to the assumption that the mummy was the woman called Nesi-Khons.