Take A Step Back In Time

If Richmond, Indiana, seems an unlikely place to get a peek at ancient Egypt, think again.

There are only two mummies in the state of Indiana and Richmond is home to both! Wayne County Historical Museum has one of the mummies. The other is a five-minute drive away, at the Joseph Moore Museum of Natural History on the campus of Earlham College.

How the two ended up in Indiana goes back to an era when artifacts from distant cultures were collected as rarities and – in the case of Richmond’s mummies – as educational tools.

The mummy at Joseph Moore Museum of Natural History was purchased from a Cairo government museum by Earlham President J.J. Mills in 1889. It was added to the collection started by Moore (Mills’ predecessor as president of the college) and has been on display pretty much ever since.

The WCHM mummy was bought by museum founder Julia Meek Gaar from a Cairo antiques dealer in 1929. It is believed it was one of the last mummies to be allowed out of Egypt, as that country underwent a change in attitude about its ancient artifacts. The story is that U.S. President Herbert Hoover intervened to make sure the mummy made its way to the museum.
A lot of museum visitors are parents and grandparents who have come to show the mummy to the next generation.

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The Joseph Moore mummy also is popular with the approximately 4,000 school children who visit the museum annually. But the information about their mummy is limited.
In contrast, the WCHM mummy might be one of the most documented in the region. That’s thanks in large part to Bonnie McClelland Sampsell, Ph.D., a Richmond native who began studying Egyptology in retirement and has led research efforts on the mummy since 2006 and made annual visits to help make changes to the exhibit.
It’s obvious that people interested in Egypt and students learning about it in school should come see the mummy, who has been given the name Men-ka-ef (“His Soul Remains”) but everyone is welcome, you’ll be surprised how interesting this piece of history is.

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The museum’s Egyptian gallery includes a model built from the mummy’s skull, so visitors can get an idea of what the 35-year-old looked like when he died. That makes the mummy seem like a real person who has been given a welcome and dignified final resting place far from his original home.
The most amazing thing about these two mummies is that they are here to be seen, half a world and 3,000 years away from ancient Egypt.
Come take a peek.