| Liber Linteus Human Mummy | |
| |
| Liber Linteus | |
| Biographical Information | |
|---|---|
| Name(s) | Nesi-hensu |
| Age | Unknown |
| Sex | Unknown |
| Status | Unknown |
| Height | Unknown |
| Source | |
| Culture | Etruscan |
| Date(s) | Unknown |
| Site | Unknown |
| Current Location | |
| Location | Archeological Museum in Zagreb |
| Catalog # | |
The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis (Latin for "Linen Book of Zagreb", also known as Liber Agramensis, "Book of Agram") is the longest preserved Etruscan text and the only extant linen book, dated to the 3rd century BC. It remains mostly untranslated because of the lack of knowledge about the Etruscan language, though the few words which can be understood indicate that the text is most likely a ritual calendar.
The fabric of the book was preserved when it was used for mummy wrappings in Ptolemaic Egypt. The mummy was purchased in Alexandria in 1848, and since 1867 both the mummy and the manuscript have been kept in Zagreb, Croatia, now in a refrigerated room at the Archaeological Museum.
In 1848, Mihajlo Barić (1791–1859), a Croatian official in the Hungarian Royal Chancellery, resigned his post and embarked upon a tour Egypt. While in Alexandria, he purchased a sarcophagus containing a female mummy. Barić displayed the mummy at his home in Vienna, standing it upright in the corner of his sitting room. At some point he removed the linen wrappings and put them on display in a separate glass case, though it seems he had never noticed the inscriptions or their importance.
The mummy remained on display at his home until his death in 1859, when it passed into possession of his brother, a priest in Slavonia. As he took no interest in the mummy, he donated it in 1867 to the State Institute of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia in Zagreb (the present-day Archaeological Museum in Zagreb). Their catalogue described it as follows:
- Mummy of a young woman (with wrappings removed) standing in a glass case and held upright by an iron rod. Another glass case contains the mummy's bandages which are completely covered with writing in an unknown and hitherto undecipherable language, representing an outstanding treasure of the National Museum.
The mummy and its wrappings were examined the same year by the German Egyptologist, Heinrich Brugsch, who noticed the text, but believed them to be Egyptian hieroglyphs. He did not undertake any further research on the text, until 1877, when a chance conversation with Richard Burton about runes made him realize that the writing was not Egyptian. They realized the text was potentially important, but incorrectly concluded that it was a transliteration of the Egyptian Book of the Dead in the Arabic script.
In 1891, the wrappings were transported to Vienna, where they were examined by Jacob Krall, an expert on the Coptic language, who expected the writing to be Coptic, Libyan or Carian. Krall was the first to identify the language as Etruscan, and reassemble the strips. It was his work that established that the linen wrappings constituted a manuscript written in Etruscan.
At first, the provenance and identity of the mummy were unknown, due to the irregular nature of its excavation and sale. This led to speculation that the mummy may have had some connection to either the Liber Linteus or the Etruscans. But a papyrus buried with her proved that she was Egyptian and gave her identity as Nesi-hensu, the wife of Paher-hensu, a tailor from Thebes.[1]
Mummification[]
The linen from the book was used as the bandages for the mummification of Nesi-hensu.
Studies[]
It is a codex, a book of religious ritual, which incorporates the largest collection of Etruscan vocabulary to be found in any one source. There are 1,200 words in all. Carbon-dating has put the codex at about 400BC.
External Links[]
https://paleoglot.blogspot.com/2011/01/translating-liber-linteus-religious.html