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# Sum of the Arts: Mummified Edition
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/sum-of-the-arts-mummified-edition/
- Published: 2015-10-30T11:00:11.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:42:55.000Z
- Description: Year that both Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch viewed a Peruvian mummy in Paris, now at the Musée de l'Homme, which may have inspired the howling expression of Munch's "The Scream" = 1889
- Author: Allison Meier
- Tags: Art, Sum of the Arts, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:13 (2014, 2015, part 3)

![A 17th-century interpreation of the ancient Egyptian mummification process (from P. Pomet's 'A compleat history of druggs,' via Wellcome Trust)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/10/wellcomemummyimage.jpg)

A 17th-century interpreation of the ancient Egyptian mummification process (from P. Pomet’s ‘A compleat history of druggs,’ via Wellcome Trust) (click to enlarge)

[*Sum of the Arts*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/sum-of-the-arts/) *is a periodic tabulation of numbers floating around the art world and beyond. For this Halloween week, we present a special edition on the mummies of the museum world and elsewhere beyond the tomb.* 

- Number of tubes of mummy brown paint Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones [buried](http://www.artinsociety.com/the-life-and-death-of-mummy-brown.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) when he discovered the pigment [was made from ground-up mummies](http://hyperallergic.com/74661/the-colorful-stories-of-5-obsolete-art-pigments/) \= **1**
- Number of scientists at any time devoted [to maintaining the mummified corpse of Vladimir Lenin](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lenin-s-body-improves-with-age1/?ref=hyperallergic.com), which is still on public view in Moscow’s Red Square = **5–6**
- Number of genetic relatives of the 5,300-year-old “Ötzi the Iceman,” whose mummified body is in Italy’s South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology,[ identified in 2013](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/scientists-say-otzi-iceman-has-living-relatives-5-300-years-8C11392771?ref=hyperallergic.com) \= **19**
- Percentage of Egyptian animal mummies scanned at the Manchester Museum and the University of Manchester [revealed to be nothing but bundles of cloth](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32656743?ref=hyperallergic.com) with no bones inside = **33**
- Years the Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptian mummy “Hor” from the 22nd Dynasty [was misidentified as a woman](http://archive.archaeology.org/online/interviews/brooklyn%5Fmummies/?ref=hyperallergic.com) \= **70**
- Number of Egyptian mummies [at the British Museum](http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/19/ancient-lives-new-discoveries-egyptian-mummies-british-museum?ref=hyperallergic.com), most of which are held in a vault deep in the institution = >**100**
- Lot number of the mummy auctioned in [an 1892 short story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot%5FNo.%5F249?ref=hyperallergic.com) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was[ the first](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse%5Fof%5Fthe%5Fpharaohs?ref=hyperallergic.com) to declare a “Pharaoh’s curse” in connection to the excavation of King Tut’s tomb causing[ a frenzy](https://ejas.revues.org/7566?ref=hyperallergic.com) of panicked people to ship their ancient Egyptian items to the British Museum and investigations into the safety of American museum mummies = **249**
- Number of people in Melbourne who attended [an 1893 mummy unwrapping](https://theconversation.com/mummies-have-had-a-bad-wrap-its-time-for-a-reassessment-48729?ref=hyperallergic.com), a popular 19th-century past-time = **700**
- Year that both Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch [viewed a Peruvian mummy in Paris](http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/screaming%5Fmummy/art%5Fimitating%5Fdeath.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), now at the Musée de l’Homme, which may have inspired the howling expression of Munch’s “The Scream” = **1889**
- Number of animals [mummified by the ancient Egyptians](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32685945?ref=hyperallergic.com), many later excavated and dispersed to museums around the world = **70,000,000**