The Case of the Glass Toe

By Don Rittner

Cinderella may have been found by her prince with a glass slipper, but the Albany Institute of History and Art can do one better. It has a 3000-year-old priestess with a glass toe! If you watched the Learning Channel last week, she was featured in a special program called "The Ancient ER." It’s a good example on how modern technology can aid in historical research.

The mummies at the Institute have always been a favorite of mine. They were purchased for the Institute in 1908 from the Cairo Museum by an Albany businessman and have been there ever since. Since I was about 8, I have visited their resting place and marveled at the exhibit which today includes more than 40 objects along with the two mummies. One mummy is totally wrapped and the other is partially unwrapped and belongs to Ankhefenmut, a priest in the Temple of Mut at Karnak in Thebes during Dynasty XXI (c. 1095-945 BC), and who is believed to have died in 966. He was between 55-65 years old.

The unwrapped mummy was also believed to be a priest all these years, until Dr. William Wagle, an Albany neuroradiologist used X-ray, computed tomography (CT) and three dimensional CT (3D CT) to virtually "unwrap" the mummy. He found a few surprises.

The unwrapped mummy turned out to be a woman of about 45-50 years old, and based on the fact that she came from the same site as the other is believed to be a priestess, but no name is attributed to her since her coffin top never made it to America. Dr. Wagle’s work unveiled that inside the mummies were a number of wrapped bundles. This is a change in the mummification practice that occurred during the 21st Dynasty. The internal organs, which for centuries were put in canopic jars, were now wrapped instead and stuffed back inside the body. Still, the customs related to canopic equipment were so strong that jars remained part of the funerary equipment for the wealthy, but were left empty, or were solid during this period. This helps date the mummies.

But that wasn’t the most surprising thing found! Dr. Wagle noticed that on her big toe of her right foot, was attached a two part prosthesis, basically an artificial toe! The density of the material revealed a distal hollow piece (-600 Hounsfield CT units) that fits exactly into a dense proximal socket (+1368 units) that may be made of ceramic, ivory or some other high density non-metallic material. Dr. Wagle believes that it may not have been a functional toe but rather attached to make her "whole" as was the custom of the time to make it to the hereafter. The ER show revealed another artificial toe from a 1000-year-old mummy that was discovered later that did show a wear pattern and may have been actually used. Nevertheless, Dr. Wagle’s discoveries were the first to reveal this ancient Egyptian medical marvel.

The Institute also revealed a new discovery last week along with the promotion of the Learning Channel piece and that was their mummified "cat" which they have had for more than 50 years turns out to be a ‘dog," using the same CT and radiograph techniques that Dr. Wagle used more than 10 years ago. Dubbed "Cat-Dog" (your kids will get it!), it is not as unusual as one would think since cat mummies were common after Bastet, the cat goddess, rose to popularity during the Egyptian Late Period (712-332 BC), but it was equally popular to fake animal mummies that were used at offerings. These mummies were often faked and sold to tourists, both in antiquity, and even more recently. The fake mummies were often composed of cloth, feathers, odd bones, brick or pottery, or merely some rags and were wrapped and sold to unsuspecting pilgrims as offerings. Similar substitutions have also been found in hawk mummies from the Sacred Animal Necropolis at Saqqara. Crocodile mummies faked with reeds and bones have also been found.

If you haven’t been in the newly redesigned and expanded Albany Institute of History and Art, I suggest you make a visit soon, especially the Ancient Egypt Gallery. The Institute is one of Albany’s prize cultural centers and has been a regional icon since 1791 making it one of the oldest institutions of its kind in America.