Mummy of Artemidorus
- Audio guide stop: 366
- Gallery: Room 62
- Culture: Roman Period
- Date: 2ndC(early)
- Object type: human mummy, cartonnage, mummy-case
- Materials: plaster; linen (?); human tissue; gold; lime wood
- Museum number: EA21810
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is the mummy of a young man named Artemidorus, dated to the Roman Period, around the early second century. He was likely between 19 and 21 years old at the time of his death.
Artemidorus is wrapped in a cartonnage case, richly decorated with gold leaf. A painted wooden portrait, an encaustic panel, covers his face and bears a heartfelt farewell in Greek: "O Artemidorus, Farewell." You’ll also notice his body was carefully preserved and stored in a lined and packed format, revealing insights into Roman mummification practices.
The mummy was excavated at Hawara and donated to the collection in 1888. He is remarkably well-preserved for the time, both in appearance and in the materials used for his burial case.
See it in person
Mummy of Artemidorus is on display in Room 62 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and type its audio guide stop number, 366, from the gallery label, or take a photo of it, to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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