The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-01-13
AN EARLY SETTLER.
Newly Discovered Mummy Lived in
Prehistoric Times.

The Egyptian gallery at the British
museum has just come into possession
of the mummy of a man which may
well be the oldest known body of any
human being. The facts concerning II
are briefly summed Up insthe following
inscription reproduced from the case
containing the mummy;
Body of "a man who was buried in a
shallow oval grave followed out Of
sandstone on the west bank of the Nile
in Upper Egypt. Before burial the body
was treated with a preparation of bi-
tumen and was arranged in the posture
in which il now lies, on its left side,
with the hands before the face and the
knees drawn up nearly on a level with
the chin The grave (Which has been
roughly initiated by the model here eX-
hibited) was covered with slabs of IN
worked stone. and in it beside the body
were disposed flint knives and a num-
Der of vases partly filled with the re-
mains and dust of funeral offerings.
The man probably belonged to fair
skinned. light haired race, which may
be regarded as one of the aboriginal
stocks of Egypt, whose settlements are
usually found on the west bank of the
Nile. The style of the flint implements
found in the grave indicate that the
man lived in the later neOlithic period
of Egypt, that is, in remote ages long
tOrical king of Egypt"
The grave was first seen by a wan
dering Arab; he reported his discovery
to q British official, who Immediately
sent a couple Of Egyptian soldiers to
guard it day and night until it could
be safely removed. The body is not u
mummy of the ordinary historic Egyp-
Jian period, such as that of Rameses
II, the father of the pharaoh of the
Exodus 1t was never bound up in
linen or caSed in any painted coffin, but
was merely coated with d preparation
of bitUmen, the Arabic word for which
is mUmla, hence our word mummy To
reach the period when this man hunt
ed along the banks OF the Nile it is
necessary TO travel backward in time
through the modern period since Eliz-
abeth, through Medieval Europe
through the whole history of Rome and
Greece, past the time of the earliest
mummied king the museum possesses,
past even Menes, the earliest king to
which Egyptian records make any ref
erenCe, who, according to Marietta
ruled about 1904 b. G. Then we are
among two prehistoric races. one the
cOnQuerOrS and the other the conquer
ed, out of which sprang the Egyptian
race of the earliest dynastieS. 1t is
with these remote stocks that this man
IS connected. Considering the condi-
uOnS in which he was found it is eVi-
dent that he was associated with a late
period of the new stone age of Egypt.
He is buried in a ChaTacteristicaIIy neo-
hthic grave (the graves of this period
are covered with rude slabs of StOne)
and has neOlithiC pots and flint imple-
ments beside him. They are like other
neOlithic pots and Clipped flint Weap-
ons and knives found in other parts of
the world The fine, thin flint knives
were perhaps placed in the grave as
part of a funeral ritual They should
be compared with the Egyptian fIints
in the prehistoric section of the muse
UNI, they are almost identical with
those found in the grave There is, of
course. no inscription of any kind on
the pots, knives o. grave, all having
been made long before the invention
of a written language. It is curious to
note that certain ancient Egyptian doe
umentS mention traditions of a race
called the Trehennu, who had red hair
and blue eyes. This man has distinctly
auburn hair. He was buried on the
western shore. In later times every
Egyptian was buried on that side Of
the river, and Egyptian models of the
death boats on which the bodies We're
ferTied over the stream may be seen
IN the Egyptian gallery