Ireland's University College Cork Repatriates Mummy to Egypt
The mummy dates back to 600 BCE and was discovered near the Valley of the Queens.
Ireland’s University College Cork (UCC) is planning to repatriate a number of ancient Egyptian artefacts, including a sarcophagus that contains a mummy dating back to 600 BCE, to Egypt by 2023. The sarcophagus - made of sycamore wood, covered in plaster, and adorned with colour - was discovered near the Valley of the Queens, and so it was assumed that the mummy’s bones belonged to a queen. However, the bones turned out to belong to an adult man aged between 45 and 50 years old. According to an inscription, it belonged to a man by the name of Hor, and carvings on the lid suggest that Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing, knowledge, and magic, gifted it to him. Four Canopic jars - which were purchased by UCC J.E. and E.K. Preston, Antiquaries and Dealers in Works of Art in Harrogate, Yorkshire sometime between 1911 and 1912 - will also be repatriated with the mummy.