JERUSALEM.- Last March, when the doctors at the Department of Radiology, Carmel Medical Center, Haifa examined the CT scans of “Alex”, the only mummy in Israel, they were absolutely stunned. “For a 2,200 year old mummy its condition was incredible”, says Galit Bennett-Dahan, curator of A Mummy in Jerusalem: Secrets of the Afterlife. “The bones were whole, most of the lower teeth and some of the upper ones remained intact as were soft tissues like skin, muscles and blood vessels. The Tel Aviv University researchers investigated the scans further and concluded that when Alex was alive he was 1.67 m tall (over the years following his death he shrank to 1.54 m), quite an imposing stature for the times. His nutrition was carbohydrate based, he suffered from osteoporosis, tooth decay, and receding gums. He died between the age of 30 and 40; for then a respectable age. Based on the medical finds, we can presume that he had had lived a comfortable life.”

The mummy arrived in Israel around 1930, in its original coffin, as a gift from the Jesuits in Alexandria (hence the name Alex) in honor of the inauguration of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Jerusalem, and remained there ever since.

The human-shaped coffin, heavily decorated with images of jewelry, and figures of deities and other beings associated with the Egyptian funerary cult furnished further details that described the man that had been placed within. “He was a temple priest in the city of Akhmim, 480 km south of present-day Cairo” says Bennett-Dahan. “The inscriptions on the coffin state that his name was Iret-hor-r-u, which means “Horus’s Protecting Eye’ and his title was 'Priest of Akhmim, Keeper of Secrets of the God’s Mother'.”

The ancient Egyptians believed that human life did not end with the death of the body, and therefore prepared themselves for eternal life in the world of the dead. Embalming was a complex process, mainly available to the upper classes. Alex’s had been filled with resin, his internal organs removed and he was buried with his arms crossed over his chest. A film explaining the embalming process is shown in the exhibition, together with Alex’s CT scans, and the information gleaned from the investigations.

Alongside the mummy, the coffin of an ibis – with the embalmed bird inside – is also on display. The coffin was presented by President Anwar Sadat to Prof. Yigael Yadin, Deputy Prime Minister, during the peace agreements with Egypt in 1979.

The other objects on display come from the Israel Museum collection and include canopic jars – where the internal organs of the deceased were placed, apotropaic scarabs, amulets and death masks that were made to resemble the dead person’s face, placed on him at his burial.