Id.
AN
ACCOUNT
OF A
MUMMY,
IN
The Royal Cabinet of Antiquities at Dresden.
Among the Egyptian Mummies of the royal cabinet, there are two preserved perfectly entire, and not in the least damaged, viz. the bodies of a man and woman. The former, among all those that were brought into, and publickly known in Europe, is perhaps the only one of its kind; on account of an inscription thereon, which none of those who have written on Mummies, except Della Valle alone, discovered on those bodies; and Kircher, among all the drawings of Mummies communicated to him, and published in his Oedipus, has but one, (the same which Della Valle had been possessed of,) with an inscription; though his wooden cut[76] is as faulty as all the copies made afterwards[77]. On that Mummy there are these letters ΕΥ✠ΥΧΙ.
This same inscription is on the royal Mummy, of which I propose to give a brief account, and in examining which I have employed all my attention, that I might be certain of its being genuine, and not drawn by a modern hand from the inscription of Della Valle: for ’tis well known, that those bodies frequently pass through the hands of Jews. But the letters are evidently drawn with the same blackish colour with which the face, hands, and feet are stained. The first letter on our Mummy has the form of a large Greek ϵ, expressed by Della Valle with an E angular, the other not being usual in printing-presses.
All the four Mummies of the royal cabinet being bought at Rome, I proposed to examine whether the Mummy with the inscription, was that which Della Valle was possessed of, and found that both the entire royal Mummies were exact resemblances of those described by him.