The First mummy in America.

 

 

 

The first documented adult mummy to arrive in the United States was brought in by Ward Nicholas Boylston, a Roxbury merchant.

Under the heading "Egyptian mummy" the Boston Columbian Centinel of 16 May 1818 reported

"In one of the late vessels from Europe, there arrived here a genuine Egyptian mummy, perhaps the first introduced into the United States.—It is in a state of good preservation, and was procured in Egypt by Ward Nicholas Boylston,  esq. in his travels in that interesting and ancient quarter of the globe. He saw it taken from the catacombs at Memphis (Saccara). It is calculated that this embalmment could not have been less than 24 centuries ago, as the most ancient writers mention, that the great art of embalmment had then been lost in Egypt for many ages. We feel indebted to this patriotic gentleman for this addition to the subjects of art and curiosity in our country.” 

According to the acquisitions records of the American Antiquarian Society, Boylston, who was a member, gave “relics of an Egyptian mummy” in November 1819.

In  August 1820 he gave “a bone and tooth of an Egyptian mummy."

These artifacts are no longer at the AAS and there is no record of where they went, although it is possible they went to either the Peabody Museum at Harvard or to the Smithsonian.

There are no drawings or pictures of the mummy, however its skull and a wrapped left leg are at the Warren Anatomical Museum (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine) in Boston. The skull lacks its lower jaw and is totally defleshed and has no visible signs that it ever was a mummy. Boylston had given the remainder of the mummy to a friend, Dr. George Shattuck, who in turn gave them to the Museum.