Behind the Scenes: The Journey of Irethorrou

I recently got to tag along as the mummy of Irethorrou was transported from Stockton's Haggin Museum to the de Young's conservation lab, in preparation for a journey down to Stanford University Medical Center for a CT scan. The mummy of Irethorrou, a 2,500-year-old ancient Egyptian priest from Akhmim, has been in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums since 1917, and had been on loan to the Haggin Museum since 1944.

While I was there I took a few photos showing the behind-the-scenes activities involved in moving a mummy, as well as some photos of him in the conservation lab. My colleague Jill Lynch accompanied him to Stanford and took the photos of him undergoing his CT scan.

Here's a slideshow of the journey, from our Flickr photostream:



Irethorrou will be the centerpiece of the upcoming exhibition Very Post-Mortem: Mummies and Medicine, opening in the Legion of Honor's Gallery 1 on Saturday, October 31.