On January 5, 2005, the Waseda University Institute of Egyptology
(Director: Professor Sakuji Yoshimura of the Faculty of International
Liberal Studies, Waseda University) discovered at their Dahshur North
site a mummy still enclosed in its wooden coffin and undisturbed by
grave-robbers.
According to the inscription on the coffin, the mummy is that of
Senw, who had the official title of "Commander." From the
forms of the coffin and the mask placed over the mummy's face, as
well as study of the inscription, Senw is believed to have been a
personage of the Thirteenth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (approximately
3,700 years ago), and his mummy is among the oldest in the world that
has both been left undisturbed by robbers and for whom a name has
been ascertainable.
After the excavation of the coffin and mummy, the preservation and
restoration process was undertaken by the British restoration expert
Richard Jaschke. As a result, the mask regained its original vivid
colors, and fragile portions of it were reinforced. In addition, the
ears and beard discovered when the mummy was removed from the coffin
were reattached, and the mask thus restored to its original form.
At the end of August 2005, Senw's mummy was transferred to the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo (commonly known as the Cairo Museum), where permission
was granted to use the Siemens CT scanner previously employed by Egypt's
Supreme Council for Antiquities in the analysis of Tutankhamen's mummy
to make scans of the new discovery. Professor Kazuaki Hirata of St.
Mariana University School of Medicine also conducted a detailed examination
of the mummy.
When the scanning was completed, the Supreme Council for Antiquities
delivered the resulting data to the Japanese team, and analysis of
it is currently underway. It is hoped that this analysis will determine
the sex, height, cause of death, age at death, and other information
concerning the mummy.
With the data in hand, a cooperative project for the facial reconstruction
of the mummy has been launched in conjunction with Kitasato University
and Joshibi University of Art and Design -a project that should give
us a look at the face of an Egyptian from nearly 3,700 years ago.
In July 2006, Senw's reconstructed face will be shown on the world's
first three-dimensional water-vapor display as part of an exhibition
commemorating forty years of archaeological research at Waseda University.
Senw's coffin and mask will also make their world debut at this exhibition.
Restoration work by Richard Jaschke |
CT scan of the mummy |
