"Royal Mummies Recently Unbandaged at the Boulak Museum, Egypt" — "Ramses II, called "The Great," the Pharaoh of the Hebrew Oppression; reigned B. C. 1404 to B. C. 1337 (from a photograph of the mummy), which appeared as an engraving in the London The Graphic, 31 July 1886: No. 870, Vol. XXXIV, p. 109 (lower register), each 151.1 cm high by 110.8 cm wide — 6 inches high by 4 ½ inches wide. "Commentary," p. 102. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Note on Illustration
These images of the unwrapped mummies of Pharaoh Ramses II and his father, Seti I, recently discovered in the Valley of the Kings, appeared in The Graphic in 1886 (half-page), even as the magazine was running H. Rider Haggard's novel She: A History of an Adventure in serial. It would not be surprising if these images influenced Johnson's depiction of Ayesha as a sort of animated mummy wrapped in Egyptian linen shrouds before She-who-must-be-obeyed "unveils" or, more accurately, "unwraps" herself in Chapter XII, "She" (13 November 1886).
Unearthed by local Egyptians in 1881, the mummy was one of a number within the Royal Cache in the Theban Necropolis. Although ancient tomb-robbers had damaged these mummies, the bodies remained remarkably well preserved, as these 1886 images suggest. Ramses II was something of a physical prodigy, likely more than six feet tall and nearly a hundred years old at the time of his death. The commentary notes that he was one of ancient Egypt's greatest builders, as he was "the builder of the Ramesseum, of the Pylons and Hall of Columns of the Temple of Luxor, and a score of minor temples in Egypt and Nubia, and the maker of the marvellous rock-cut Temples of Aboo-Simbel" (102). These building feats suggest the enormous rock-cut caves of Kôr in Rider Haggard's "SHE": The History of an Adventure (Chapter XVI, “The Tombs of Kôr,” 552).
Related Material
- Maurice Greiffenhagen's Ayesha Unveils (1888)
- [Ayesha reveals her beauty] H. Rider Haggard
- Ayesha’s Doom: Her Body Ages and Decays
- The Female Body in the Nineteenth Century — Primary & Secondary Materials
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. You may use the image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Haggard, H. Rider. "SHE:" A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. She: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. She: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888.
Royal Mummies recently Unbandaged at the Boulak Museum, Egypt. The Graphic Magazine, Vol. XXXV. 31 July 1886, p. 102 and 109.
Created 12 May 2025