The Mummy Trappings in the National Museum in Belgrade: A Reconstruction and Typological Assessment*

In July 2009 the National Museum in Belgrade received – as a donation – two elements of a funerary assemblage: a fragmented mask and a conjoined collar-breast covering. Although heavily damaged, those ancient Egyptian mummy trappings furnish modern analysts with valuable information about their fabrication and ritual employment. The mask is of helmet-type, made of gessoed linen which had been decorated with paint and gilded upon the face. The front of the mask is in relatively fair condition, but the top and rear have suffered considerably, being reduced to small fragments whose original position is difficult to determine. The mask is heavily affected by staining caused by deliberately over-poured resin, i.e. the traces of a ritual unguent pouring. The collar-breast covering is a conjoined type forming a single rectangular or rather slightly trapezoidal plaque. The collar design consists of a system of schematized floral decoration arranged in seven semicircular bands around a single semi-lunate zone. A decorative grid containing funerary motifs extends below the collar field. It consists of four horizontal registers separated by polychrome bands of colored rectangles. The whole forms a complex tapestry of protective imagery: deities, amuletic symbols and magical vignettes. The mask and the breast cover are datable to the late Ptolemaic Period (ca. 100 – 50 B.C.). The most likely place of origin is site of Hawara at the entrance to the Fayum region.


Introduction
The National Museum's Egyptological collection comprises a relatively moderate number of objects (Anđelković 2002a(Anđelković , 2002b(Anđelković , 2015Anđelković and Teeter 2006). In spite of their scarcity and the fact that the objects -relics of Egyptian glory and decline -are far away from their original particular locations (frequently unknown), they still possess a unique 'time machine' ability to enrich a Museum visitor's knowledge and to 'transport' his or her thoughts and imagination to that ancient civilization centered around on the river Nile, which has left the world a lasting legacy (see Jenkins 2016).
In July 2009 the National Museum in Belgrade received two elements of a funerary assemblage: a fragmented mask and a conjoined collar-breast covering. The elements were bought in Egypt between 1967 and 1971 by Rade Markuš who during that time span held the position of an accountant in the Embassy of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Egypt, Cairo. The fragmentary mummy trappings were probably purchased in an antique shop in Cairo. 1 After the Markuš family returned to Belgrade the objects were kept in a shallow cardboard box placed in the entryway closet of their Zvezdara neighborhood apartment. 2 The year after his parents passed away in 2008, Predrag Markuš, son of Rade Markuš, donated the objects to the National Museum in Belgrade in memory of his deceased parents. 3 The subsequent 'museological biography' of the two donated elements of ancient Egyptian funerary assemblage might at first glance seem rather curious (see Alberti 2005) unless one is familiar with a 'push aside' policy concerning the ancient Egyptian artifacts in Serbian museums (Anđelković 2013;Vasiljević 2018). Originally, the donated mask and the collar-breast covering were kept in the collection of Lepenski Vir (an archaeological site of the Mesolithic-Neolithic culture of the Danube Gorges), then in the Numismatic collection, and then in the Greco-Hellenistic collection. 4 The fragmentary mummy trappings never underwent any conservation or restoration treatment 1 During four years of service in Cairo, Rade Markuš and his family have visited only Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan (Predrag Markuš, personal communication, April 18, 2019). Since the most likely place of origin of the donated mask and the collar-breast covering is the Fayum region, we can logically presume that the pieces were brought to Cairo as the nearest and biggest antiquities market. nor were they ever exhibited. Moreover, these artifacts still lack a simple inventory/object number.
After a hiatus of almost two decades the remodeled building of the National Museum in Belgrade reopened in June 2018. However, it was only in April 2019 that the Egyptological collection (or rather most of it) was finally -and for the first time since the early 1960's -staged at the National Museum's permanent display. Even so, the donated cartonnage mask and the collar-breast covering remained out of sight. Only recently have the present authors learned of these 'ignored' museum pieces and gotten the opportunity to publish them.

Condition
The mask and breast covering were both made of cartonnage (layers of linen coated with gesso then gilded and/or painted). The pieces have survived a series of severe taphonomic impacts. Archaeologically they cracked through subsidence under pressure while entombed and this problem was exacerbated during extraction. In addition, it is evident that both mask and breast covering were subjected to moderate water damage at some stage since in many places the colors have smeared together and become rather muddied. In some areas pigment has flaked away, leaving areas devoid of color. In areas of the most serious disruption, the gesso surface has broken away completely from the linen substrate, resulting in a loss of content. The mask is in particularly poor condition (aside from the mask itself there are about three bigger and numerous smaller fragments of it).
It is our belief that the mask and breast panel once adorned the same mummy; the hairstyle of the mask may indicate that the trappings belonged to a female. 5 In fact, a stylistically very similar mask and breast panel were found to adorn a well-preserved mummy of a late Ptolemaic woman (Redpath Museum RM 2720) in Montreal, Canada (Wade et al. 2012, 1237RM2720, 1241. The intact RM 2720 mummy independently attests the association of this type of mask and breast panel with each other; it furthermore shows that the types are used in the burial of an adult female; and beyond that, that their style derives from a workshop serving Hawara and its environs. 5 The hairstyle of the mask's wig includes curled bangs on the forehead. Such bangs are found in masks placed on some female mummies, e.g., Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Leipzig Inv. 7813 (Germer 1997, 121), but it remains to be seen whether the curled bangs were only used for woman (cf. Manley and Dodson 2010, 110, cat. 39, where a mask with bangs found separated from the mummy is called the mask of a man).

Helmet-type Mask
The mummy mask ( Fig. 1) is of approximate maximum height 41.5 cm and thickness 0.2-0.85 cm. It is of so-called helmet-type. In other words, it is a head cover that was literally placed all around the mummy's head. The inner surface of the mask is also gessoed. The face of the mask -idealized and youthful with stylized facial features -is gilded with painted eyes with black centers which are edged in greenish-gray, which matches the eyebrows. A thicker line is provided on the top side of the eye. The ears are modeled in relief 6 and are fairly large. 7 The hair, indicated by green-gray stripes on a light (whitish) ground is arranged in bangs. These terminate in rounded, J-shaped curls. The paint is laid on thickly and this was done deliberately to create a schematic texture. Areas painted light blue are present on detached fragments which once would have sat behind the hair. There are traces of other designs interpretable as the wings of a Khepri beetle, a common treatment for the summit of helmet-masks manufactured in the Fayum. Contrasting with the light blue field (on the rear) is a yellow headband element edged in red with a white stripe, which served on this mask as its 'wreath of vindication'. The front of this band toward the top of the mask is decorated with row of circular shapes. These have a raised relief quality like bosses. 8 Their original color may have been white, and they would have stood out from the yellow-ground color of the headband. They are now black, and it seems that this color is the same as the resin that was placed elsewhere on the mask. The bosses, it seems, were individually dabbed with resin and very deliberately so. 6 The relief-modelling of the ears, eyes, mouth and nose is visible on the interior surface of the mask. 7 There is a tendency for the ears to become smaller, even vestigial in later Fayumic masks. These ears remain wide, suggesting an earlier date, Late Ptolemaic before 30 B.C. 8 Similar bosses appear on a mask in Hildesheim, Roemer-Pelizaeus Inv. 1587.

Figure 1. Helmet-type mask
Each side of the face was also smeared with resin and the lines made by the operator matches a finger of each of the operator's hands. One should be sure not to confuse the obvious resin traces for a beard shown on a number of cartonnage mummy-masks (e.g. Ikram and Dodson 1998, 168-169, fig. 194). An image of a wedjat-eye seems to be visible below the headband but poured resin has flowed over and completely obscured it. Such painted wedjat-eyes are typical in Fayumic masks and were clearly intended to serve magically upon the forehead, which by the Ptolemaic Period had become the focal zone on which wedjat-eye amulets were to be placed within the mummy wrappings (Elias and Mekis 2019, 148, fig. 4b-1).
Also detached from the main area of the mask are the lappets; they were vertically striped and terminated in horizontal stripes of red, light blue and dark blue (top to bottom) on a white ground. Fragments indicate that the mask had a border on sides and below consisting of a band of polychrome rectangles (light blue and red) with white separators. At the level of the lappet terminus the artist has painted inter-fitted squares of light blue pigment with a red line at center.
The mask is heavily affected by staining caused by deliberately over-poured resin. Nevertheless, it is apparent that between the lappets, collar decoration of 5+ bands was painted in, including two bands consisting of triangles of light blue emulating folded petals with the stringing indicated in white on a red ground. Toward the bottom, a band of yellow dots on a light blue ground site atop the common band with painted tear-drop bangles. Significantly, two yellow lines overpaint the inter-lappet collar bands to indicate a pendant on gold necklace.
On the viewer's right (lower part), there are remnants of several thick linen straps decoratively arranged on one of the wig lappets. Two diagonals cross a pair of horizontally-arranged straps; below these, two diagonal straps remain from what seems to have been a diamond configuration. We interpret these as the traces of a more extensive lozenge-pattern webbing which bound the mask to the mummy bundle. It is a common feature in Ptolemaic and early Roman Period mummy preparation in the Fayum, an early foreshadowing of the wellknown rhomboidal or coffer-pattern bandaging that becomes more prevalent toward the end of the 1st century A.D.
Masks having these characteristics are generally associated with sites in the Fayum region, including Tebtynis (Tell Ûmm el-Baragât), Deir el-Banat, 9 Er-Rubbayat 10 (Manley and Dodson 2010, 110, cat. 39) and Hawara (classical Labyrinthos). This last site is centered on the renowned 12 th Dynasty cemetery associated with the Pyramid of Amenemhat III and was used intensively in Greco-Roman times as the municipal necropolis of Crocodilopolis/ Arsinoe (Petrie, Wainwright and Mackay 1912). Examples of similar helmet masks emerged in large numbers following the initial investigation of the site in the late 1880's (Petrie 1889). The striping of the lappets in this example contrasts with many other masks of the general class that contain motifs within the lappet area, most notably images of Osiris (Osiroid figures seated upon shrines) common at Tebtynis (e.g. James 1982, 175, Fig. 80). 11

Collar-breast Covering
The collar-breast covering (Fig.  2) is of maximum height 41.5 cm, bottom width 16.5 cm and thickness 0.3-0.6 cm. It is gessoed only on the front side, whereas the back side is made of a single, rough, thick linen fabric. Small part on the (viewer's) right upper side is missing.
Collar patterns: the collar designs were originally very striking. Significantly, no upper border or flanking falcon terminals are included. Bright yellow bands with dark blue (or black) solid circles occur in the first and fifth position. The second position is decorated in a triangle folded-petal pattern (of blue) on a red ground. The third and sixth positions contain bands having a green ground, filled with white rosettes with red dots at their centers. The fourth and central band (as in other collar systems) sports the most complex of the patterns: this is heavily damaged but was evidently a red ground containing a row of dangling fan-shaped lotus blossoms in green separated by circular blue buds.
Organization of vignettes and motifs: vignettes and motifs on the collar-breast covering are organized in four horizontal registers flanked with five vertical continuous stripes painted in alternating white and blue color (W-B-W-B-W).
Register 1: A winged beetle representing solar deity Khepri occupies the upper position just below the collar bands. The beetles' claws push a sun-disk skyward. The disk itself was once flanked by wedjat-eyes, of which only one 11 See: Sotheby's New York Sale, June 12, 2001, lot. 218. Figure 2. The collar-breast covering remains (on the viewer's left). They were contained within innermost of a system of metope-like compartments separated by decorative triglyphs consisting of stripes of alternating color. The next two metopes, moving outward to either side, contain a triangular shape, and finally, two large lateral metopes on either side appear to have contained a figure of a male deity with a large knotted bandage at the waist. Only the one on the viewer's right still exists and it wears the plumed White Crown emblematic of the god Osiris. By comparing the present covering with known Hawara examples it is safe to assume that the deity in the large lateral damaged metope on viewer's left once also contained a figure of this very god. Namely, in view of the symmetrical composition of most collar-breast coverings from Hawara, the missing metope on the viewer's right would likely have contained a second image of Osiris as well.
Register 2: A vignette showing the mummy on a funerary bier is placed in the center of the covering. The god Anubis (or a priest in the role of Anubis) raises an unguent jar with flaring rim over the mummy as if about to pour its contents onto the wrapped body. The head of the bier is nearly entirely destroyed, but miraculously, what remains of it leaves no doubt that the figure wore a diadem consisting of a sun-disk with double plumes, the so-called atef-crown. The horizontal frame of the bier was painted yellow, but much of the area below it has broken away from the linen substrate, leaving no traces of Anubis' legs. However, the remains of one canopic jar can still be seen underneath. The remains of a standing goddess can still be seen on either side of the bier. They represent Isis and Nephthys respectively although a sun-disk replaces the distinctive hieroglyphic symbol we expect in each case (i.e. throne-glyph and mansion-glyph).
Register 3: A winged goddess holding a maat-feather in each hand is placed below the mummy-on-bier motif. She faces toward the viewer's right and wears a solar disk on her head. From comparison with countless other objects (e.g. Manley and Dodson 2010, 117, cat. 46) she can be identified as Nut, goddess of heaven, who has been given the attributes of Maat, goddess of justice. The goddess is set low inside the register, allowing the artist to fill the area above her wings with a colorful pattern of red, white and blue vertical stripes which seems intended to convey the splendid glow of the divine image. Dark resin poured deliberately on this register obscures some of the design.
Register 4: Apart from dark resin extending from register 3, an extremely fragmented vignette is all that remains. However, careful examination of the tiny pieces still adhering to the linen substrate shows traces of a group of crouching deities (perhaps four) facing to the viewer's right, seated within a boat with flaring lotus-form prow and stern elements. A sun-disk is seated on each of the lotuses. By comparing the present covering with known Fayumic examples from Hawara 12 (Drenkhahn and Germer 1991, Kat. Nr. 78) we sug-gest that the group of crouching deities included Ra and possibly Osiris, Isis and Nephthys.

Discussion
It was a real challenge to us to be able to work our way back from such a damaged elements of cartonnage to some semblance of understanding of their significance. The present authors clearly identify visual elements for the collar-breast covering reconstruction (Fig. 3). We are able to state unequivocally that the cartonnage originate from the Fayum region and within that zone the most likely place of origin is Hawara (cf. Wade et al. 2012, 1237RM2720, 1241 Fig. 4a-b).
The sequence of motifs within the registers of the breast cover in Belgrade correspond very closely with examples known to have come from Hawara, such as Hannover, Kestner Museum 1976.68 (Drenkhahn andGermer 1991, Kat. Nr. 78). By this we mean specifically: the Khepri beetle in register 1, the mummy on bier motif in register 2, the goddess Nut in register 3, and the sun-boat motif in register 4. Other smaller aspects of the design are represented at Hawara as well, including the addition of an atef-crown on the lion head of the mummification bier, the Anubis priest holding up an unguent vessel and sun disks hovering above the prow and stern of the solar boat. The inclusion of the solar boat in the lowest of the registers is a characteristic seen throughout the Heptanomis (the northern part of Upper Egypt); outside of the Fayum the feature is noted in the coffin art of El-Hibeh (Gessler-Löhr 2017, pls. 43-48).
Our example shows the red-white and blue vertical striping in the upper halves of the registers, a characteristic noted on cartonnage specimens from northern Middle Egypt and the Fayum.  The pouring of unguent onto the masks worn by Ptolemaic mummies is found in the case of the well-known 'Mummy 1770' (Manchester, MM 1770), a Ptolemaic female believed to have come from Hawara (David 1979, 87) and other examples (e.g. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek AEIn 927). It is completely expectable based on the recently discussed texts of the Embalming Ritual (Töpfer 2017). The ritual includes, as far as concerns the body beneath the bandages, directions for anointing the mummy with myrrh (in Egyptian: 'ntyw) and singled out the head as a starting point in a larger sequence; this eventually included the body and it was apparently customary after anointing the head, to move from the shoulders to the soles of the feet (Töpfer 2017, 23, Chap. X +II, +III). The ritual does not mention mummy trappings nor the pouring of liquids on them, but it is abundantly clear that the anointing sequence could be played out or perhaps repeated externally, i.e. upon the decorative elements placed on mummies. Evidence is sporadically encountered from the Third Intermediate Period for the pouring of sacred unguent onto inner anthropoid containers (bivalve coffins and cartonnage mummy cases), while leaving the mummy itself in uncoated (e.g. Berlin Ägyptischen Museum Inv. 8500, bivalve inner anthropoid coffin of Ken-hor from Akhmim; KMB 1899, 274;Germer, Kischkewitz and Lüning 2009, 127). A growing body of data show that the practice of anointing the exterior of the mummy itself was carried out rather regularly in the Fayum in the Ptolemaic Period, particularly in preparations datable to the later part of that era and continuing into Roman times.