The Mummy Case

The Mummy Case  is the third of a series of historical mystery novels written by Elizabeth Peters and featuring the character Amelia Peabody. It was first published in 1985. The story is set in the 1894–1895 dig season in Egypt.

Plot summary

Amelia and her husband, Professor Radcliffe Emerson, return to Egypt for the 1894–95 season to excavate the ruined pyramids of Mazghunah. Emerson preferred to dig at Dahshoor, but  archaeologist Jacques de Morgan has charge there. For the first time, the Emersons bring along their young son Ramses and his cat Bastet, along with John, a sturdy footman, to watch him. Ramses is a precocious boy.

While in Cairo, Amelia sees a scrap of papyrus at a shop, yet the owner Abd el Atti will not admit to it. He is found that night, murdered in his shop.

The family settles in near their dig in an abandoned monastery, with a village of Copts nearby, whose priest is Father Girgis. Three American missionaries of a small Protestant church visit them. The intolerant Reverend Ezekiel Jones, his sister Charity, and handsome David Cabot of the Boston Cabots offer Charity to do work for Amelia, which she turns down. The missionaries are converting Copts, already a minority in Egypt. They learned of the Emersons from M de Morgan, head of the Department of Antiquities.

The workmen, Egyptian Moslems under Abdullah, reis to Emerson, make their camp in Abizeh. Abdullah’s youngest son Selim, 14 years old, becomes friends with much younger Ramses, and takes over the job of supervising Ramses. John the footman is moved to other tasks.  

People from the Copt village decide to work for Emerson, starting work quickly on their quarters.

The four, Emerson, Amelia, Ramses and Selim, visit de Morgan and his helper Kalinescheff, a Russian prince, at Dahshoor. Ramses asks to see the pyramid. Amelia brings up the increase in trade of stolen artifacts, and the presence of a Master Criminal, a new force who has organized the groups of thieves. De Morgan does not agree about this Master Criminal.

Amelia and Ramses meet a German baroness at the missionary’s Sunday service, on the arm of David Cabot. The baroness has a collection of antiquities, including a mummy case, on her dahabeah. She has a lion cub. The antiquities anger Emerson and the caged lion cub angers Ramses. The baroness gives some of the antiquities to Emerson; Ramses sneaks the lion cub to his home, aiming to train it.

The mummy case from the German baroness was empty and someone has burned it after stealing it from the storeroom; a mummified body is found separately by Emerson; he had bought a face painting of a woman from Abd’s shop in Cairo. The three had once fit together. The mummy itself includes amulets.

Ramses finds the murdered body of Habib, son of Abd, at the site. The Protestant missionaries bury it. 

The upper structure of the pyramids at their own site is long gone, but there are underground tunnels appearing as that phase of the dig begins. Amelia and Emerson and visit both the Copt priest and the Protestant missionaries.

A note from Sister Charity lures Emerson and Amelia out of their compound to meet at midnight. They are seized by three tomb robbers and taken to the Black Pyramid in de Morgan’s dig at Dashoor. The men drop them to the wet bottom, 16 feet below the next level. Shortly after they assess their situation, their son Ramses is dropped in next to them. The three of them reach that next level, and follow Ramses to an exit point he had found on an earlier solo exploration. Emerging there, the three walk home, to find Abdullah drugged. 

Their home is occupied by the thieves,  whose leader is Father Girgis, or rather an Englishman playing the role of a Coptic priest. Ramses enters, is attacked by a thug, spurring Amelia into furious action against them. The leader seeks the pectoral belonging to a princess and found by Ramses, and Ramses gets it back. The Emersons tie up the two thugs.

At the place of Ezekiel Jones, they find him ready to kill John. Ezekiel Jones asserts that he is the prophet, the messiah, mentioned in the Bible. He is not sane. Emerson disarms Ezekiel. 

Emerson and Amelia explain the events to de Morgan, who comes there with Ramses. Ezekiel was enraged by the Coptic script on the papyrus at Abd’s shop. Ezekiel strangled and hanged Abd el Atti in his shop in that anger. There were two identical mummy cases, for a husband and wife in the later Roman era. They used Coptic papyri as waste to make the mummy case out of cartonnage. Hamid, son of Abd, shifted the identical cases to fool others. Ezekiel is going insane, and still believes in murder, so he killed Hamid with his bare hands. Ezekiel’s goal was to destroy the papyrus with the words that so angered him. Thus he burned the mummy case. The manuscript is a copy of a lost gospel written by Didymus Thomas, that appears heretical to Ezekiel. The three missionaries return to Boston.

The other gang steals and sells tomb goods. The Russian prince gave information to the thieves. Amelia does not reveal to de Morgan about the item found by Ramses in the Black Pyramid, wanted by the Master Criminal. Ramses, holding the box with the pectoral in it, then speaks alone with de Morgan, making a deal.

The family leaves Egypt in March, having dug out the substructure of their pyramid. In England they greet their newest nephew, and the lion cub is accepted at Chalfont. De Morgan’s photo was in The Illustrated London News, a British newspaper, showing the jewels of a princess found in his pyramid.

Reviews
Kirkus Reviews found this novel to have period ambience and ironic comedy, written with “a crisp sense of style that rarely flags.”

Quotes
In Ramses’ first time at an archaeological dig, he makes many unexpected statements, for one of his young age.

Ramses got off his donkey. Squatting, he began to sift through the debris...[He] held up an object that looked like a broken branch. "It is a femuw," he said in a trembling voice. "Excuse me, Mama - a femur, I meant to say." [...]

Ramses rose obediently. The warm breeze of the desert ruffled his hair. His eyes glowed with the fervor of a pilgrim who has finally reached the Holy City.

See also
 List of Amelia Peabody characters

References

External links
Brief description of the pyramids at Mazghuna

 The Peabody-Emerson Excavations 1884-1923 

The Mummy Case in The Worlds of Barbara Mertz

1985 American novels
Amelia Peabody
Novels set in Egypt
Novels set in deserts
Fiction set in 1894
Fiction set in 1895
Novels set in the 1890s
Historical mystery novels