Athena Review Image Archive ™
Emil Brugsch
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Emil Brugsch, from a photo taken in the 1880s.
Emil Brugsch, an associate of Gaston Maspero, worked for several decades at the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo. In 1881, Brugsch and Maspero recovered dozens of royal mummies from the 18th-20th Dynasties, in a cache at Deir el-Bahri (CV 320). These, originally placed in royal tombs in the nearby Valley of the Kings, had been moved and stored in a family tomb ca. 950 BC by a Theban priest, to hide them from ancient tomb-robbers.
Ironically, the cache (CV 320) was rediscovered in 1881 due to the activities of modern tomb-robbers. In order to prevent further looting, Maspero and Brugsch removed about 30 royal caskets with mummies in two days, with no time to take detailed notes of the placements in the deposit. The mummies included those of Ramesses II, Seti I, and various other pharoahs and their wives from the 18th-20th Dynsties (ca. 1500-1150 BC), each of whom had had their own tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Also recovered were the coffins of the family of the head priest who had secreted the royal mummies in ca. 950 BC. Some of these mummies, including that of Seti I, show excellent preservation.
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