Mummy Business in Philadelphia
On 23 November 1850, underneath a picture of the coffin and mummy of Got-Mut-As-Anch, Gliddon issued a similar proposal to the one he had issued in Boston.
"Mr. Gliddon proposes to give a course of eight archaeological lectures—seven in the lower saloon of the Chinese Museum, and one in the upper, on Monday and Friday evenings, at 7 ½ o’clock, between the 30th of December and the 24th of January, provided not less than 200 subscribers be obtained by the 10th of December. Two very interesting mummies will be unrolled in the upper saloon, on one of those evenings."
Gliddon also had a small handbill published primarily for the exhibition of the Panorama, which featured the body of the mummy unwrapped in Boston.
A little bit of whimsy preceded the unrolling, as recorded in Spirit of the Times 21 no. 2 (1 March 1851). A collection of gentlemen were inspecting the cases and the illustration thereon, when they were startled to hear a voice issue from the folds of linen which enveloped the body:
“Open the box! Open the box!” said the voice.
“Who are you?” inquired one of the learned Thebans, whose curiosity had gotten the better of his astonishment.
“I am a descendant of the pharaohs,” answered the voice within.
“Are you a genuine mummy?”
“Yes, and no mistake; regularly manufactured in Egypt, by some of the first artists.”
“Do you come from Ham?”
“Ham—no, I am a better specimen of dried beef.”
“What do you want here?”
“Ask yourself; your confounded prying Yankee inquisitiveness has waked me from the slumber of ages.”
A thought struck the scientific questioner, and he determined to settle a long mooted question.
“Were the Egyptians black or red men?”
“Red as the knave of hearts.”
“What caused the decline of the Egyptian nation?”
“It didn’t decline; like the modern Celt, the Egyptian emigrated to Mexico.”
“To Mexico?” inquired the doctor.
“Yes; open the box, open the box.”
“Then the pyramid at Choluiu is –“
“Exactly; it is nothing else.”
“And you are—“
“Bobby.”
“Bobby who?” asked the astonished inquirer.
“Bobby Blitz;”
and a little man with a "peculiar head of hair" glided out of the room. Bobby Blitz was a famed ventriloquist, often noted for his work with birds. This bit of silliness may have been prompted by Edgar A. Poe's short story "Some words with a mummy."
Gliddon’s mummy unrollings in Philadelphia went a bit more smoothly than had the one in Boston—at least there were no surprises. The North American and United States Gazette of 18 January 1851 reported on the proceedings:
"Mr. Gliddon. After a few introductory remarks, operations were commenced on the mummy of the Egyptian lady, named Got-Mut-As-Anch, daughter of Got-Har-Af-Anch, priest and scribe of the sacred signet in the temple of Amun, at Thebes. The case being first removed by sawing a portion of it apart and ripping up the stitching confining it on the back, the lady was taken out and placed on a table. At the request of Mr. Gliddon, Dr. Henry S. Patterson, aided by Drs. [Wm. R.] Grant and [David] Gilbert, whom he invited to assist him, proceeded to unwrap the bandages with which the corpse was enveloped. The process was attended with no difficulty and little delay, except that required to cut the separate pieces of linen cloth in which the mummy was swathed ... The process of unrolling the child was next proceeded with; but as it was found, that the cloths, from the great quantity of pitch used, adhered so closely and firmly to the body, that it would have required a mallet and chisel to get them off. The operation was deferred for another time."
At least one anonymous spectator kept the handbill as a souvenir, along with some of the wrappings, as carefully noted on the verso of the little broadside. Although incorrectly dated 1850 instead of 1851, it is a testament to the interest people had in mummymania.