The Boston unwrapping

George Robbins Gliddon was born in Devonshire, England in 1809, the son of John G. Gliddon, who later became U.S. Consul at Alexandria. He was taken to Egypt at an early age, and later himself became U.S. Vice-Consul in Egypt [at Cairo]. In 1842 he came to America where he lectured on Egyptian archaeology at Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts, as well as across the country as far west as St. Louis. He published several works about ancient Egypt, Otia Aegyptiaca, An Appeal To the Antiquaries of Europe On the Destruction of the Monuments of Egypt, and Ancient Egypt, Her Monuments, Hieroglyphics, History and Archaeology, and Other Subjects Connected with Hieroglyphical Literature.

In  November 1849, Gliddon obtained the transparent Panorama of the Nile and brought it from England to New York, from whence he intended to exhibit it throughout the principal cities of the United States. In his Hand-book to the American Panorama of the Nile (London: James Madden, 1849), he listed some of the Egyptian antiquities which would accompany the panorama, among them “four unopened human mummies, besides crania of ancient Egyptians, and several highly finished mummy cases … animal mummies of every variety …”

In order to entice people to come to the Panorama exhibition in Boston, he circulated a proposal that he unwrap one of the mummies as part of the exhibition. Tickets would cost $5 and would entitle four people to hear all three of his lectures plus watch the unwrapping.

Gliddon included drawings of the coffins of the unwrapped mummy, and told people it was the "Unopened mummy of ANCH-ph****; “Daughter of the High Priest of Thebes—Got-Thoth-I”—who lived between B.C. 1200 and B.C. 1500  the daughter of a priest."

By the time the actual unwrapping the media had transformed the daughter of a priest into not only a priestess but also a princess.

An anonymous poet in The Boston Daily Atlas of 7 June 1850 penned "The mummy at home" which was a very long ode to this "princess" and her imagined life. He sympathizes with her family's grief at her death, and describes her handsome young lover as "he weeps upon the broken stem of the lily of the Nile." (This poem is printed in its entirety in the exhibit Sampler of Mummies and Popular Culture)

The Panorama, lectures, and mummy unwrapping were to be exhibited at Tremont Temple over a series of three nights. The first lecture was described in the 3 June 1850 issue of the Boston Daily Evening Transcript:

"The cases of sycamore wood, ornamented with hieroglyphics, were placed horizontally upon a stand; and while Mr. Gliddon discoursed upon the Nile and the pyramids of Giza and the receptacles where mummies were found, an officiating carpenter took off his coat, and, with a small saw, proceeded to saw the case lengthwise ... The mummy came out in beautiful condition, as if it had been deposited in its case but yesterday instead of 1500 years before the birth of Christ. It came out swathed in linen, smooth and but slightly discolored by the lapse of time ..."

That concluded the first lecture.

the Daily Evening Transcript of 5 June 1850 recorded the second evening's entertainment:

"Mr. G. placed the mummy in charge of the committee of scientific gentlemen, appointed for that purpose, and they proceeded to unwrap the numerous bandages, in which it was swathed ... After the bandages had been taken from the greater part of the mummy, which was unrolled today, it was displayed to the audience. But the mode of embalming this specimen had been peculiar—being by dipping the body in boiling bitumen, so that the face looked as if carved out of anthracite coal. Some of the learned medical gentlemen on the platform disputed the sex of the mummy, and for a moment doubt was thrown upon the accuracy of Mr. Gliddon’s reading of the hieroglyphical inscriptions. But this doubt was soon dispelled by one of the most distinguished of our anatomical professors, who very satisfactorily showed that the position of the hand had led to the erroneous supposition invalidating Mr. Gliddon’s statement."

Gliddon should have listened.

“Mr. Gliddons last lecture” was recorded in the Daily Evening Transcript of 7 June 1850:

"A revelation, which excited no little surprise and amusement was now made. The mummy was not the body of a priestess, but of a man. The fact was very satisfactorily established by the medical gentlemen who had examined it. Mr. Gliddon remarked that mistakes would occur in the best regulated families, but in this case he was very certain that the mistake occurred 3000 years ago at Thebes, and was not in his reading of the hieroglyphical inscription. He explained how naturally, in an establishment, where hundreds of bodies were undergoing the process of embalment [sic], the ticket might have got slipped, and a mummified man found himself in the coffin intended for a priestess. His explanation was so ingenious and satisfactory that the audience received it with a burst of applause."

The newspapers reported upon the gaffe with glee, including a short article in the 20 June 1850 Pittsfield Sun  which commented"

“The Boston Post says that one of Mr. Gliddon’s patron’s declares that although the mummy turned out to be man, he still considered it to be a dam-sel.”

So much for early American humor!

Gliddon packed up the Panorama, mummies and artifacts and headed for Philadelphia.