Mummy

Re Zubair Ahmed Madani's questions about the mummy.

I am sure he will get much advice, but I want to start with perhaps
the simplest issues:  Considering the preservation of the mummy for
such a long time, the best environment is probably one identical to
what it has been in. Ordinarily, this means dry. If the environment
the piece is kept in is quite different from the ideal one, and
there is no one available who knows about this problem from a
museum-related field, people who maintain computer rooms may be the
best ones to help you.  If this does not work out, and you can
provide more specific information, the list can help. In regard to
fumigation, the point of fumigation is to kill things.  Is there
anything that needs to be killed?  If not, don't do anything.  If
the answer is yes, it is still better to do nothing chemical, as the
chemicals that kill organisms do so by some alteration of living
tissue, which is exactly what you do not want to have happen to any
of the tissues of the mummy.

Probably the best advice would be to get someone who is familiar
with this kind of problem and have them in as a consultant.  Giving
information, even as broad as this, can be off the mark unless it is
backed up with detailed information about the object, but better yet
is for someone to actually examine the object.

B. Appelbaum


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:27
                 Distributed: Friday, November 10, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-14-27-002
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