with Observations on some Manufactures of the Ancients. 363 



portions were still fresh. On examination no mordant ap- 

 peared to have been used to fix this dye, and washing in cold 

 water greatly impaired it. Comparative experiments made on 

 this colour, and on that afforded by Carthamus to simple 

 water before the pink dye is extracted, left little doubt of their 

 being identical. They were slightly and similarly affected by 

 solutions of alumina and of iron, and appeared to have very 

 feeble affinities for either vegetable fibre or any of the earthy 

 or metallic bases. 



Though the age of the mummies from which these speci- 

 mens were derived has not been ascertained, yet we may fairly 

 presume that it goes back to a period so far remote as to make 

 the preservation so long, of delicate and fugacious colouring 

 matter like Carthamus, or even the more permanent one of 

 indigo, very surprising, and proves that substances which readily 

 yield to the combined and destructive agency of heat or light 

 and moisture, are almost unalterable when secured from the 

 action of the latter. Portions of the blue cloth which had re- 

 sisted in the dark and dry sepulchres of Thebes for ages, 

 lost, by a few days' exposure on the grass, nearly all their 

 colour. 



Mummy cloth not stained or discoloured by resin or bitu- 

 men is generally of a pale-brown or fawn colour, which has 

 been supposed to arise from some astringent preparation 

 employed by the Egyptians for its preservation. All this 

 cloth imparts to water a brown colour, in which I have sought 

 in vain for any trace of tannin. In none of the specimens 

 I have examined did either gelatine or albumen, or solu- 

 tions of iron, afford any precipitate; but the subacetate of 

 lead produced a cloud, indicating the presence of extractive 

 matter. I am inclined to think that if astringent matter has 

 been found, it is in those bandages which have received a pre- 

 paration of gum or resin, and which are distinguished from 

 the others by their stiffness. These I have not examined. 

 All these cloths, whether fine or coarse, are more or less 

 rotten. Of the numerous specimens which have fallen under 

 my notice, the outer covering of the fine mummy in the Lon- 

 don University has suffered least : it is comparatively sound. 

 Whether this be an argument against its high antiquity, I 

 know not; but the cloth is evidently ancient Egyptian : nor is 

 it, I believe, pretended that in those factitious mummies ma- 

 nufactured by the Arabs, of which several were found by 

 Blumenbach in the British Museum, the bandages and en- 

 velopes are not genuine. Of the ancient cloth there is such 

 an accumulation in the mummy pits and sepulchres of Egypt, 

 as to have become an object of speculation in Europe, for the 



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