TAKABUTI, the Belfast Mummy

Rosalie David and Eileen Murphy explain how scientific examination of the ‘Belfast Mummy’ is revealing much new information about her life and times.

- Rosalie David and Eileen Murphy

A scientific research programme carried out by teams from Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, and the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at the University of Manchester has provided a wealth of new information about the life and death of Takabuti, whose mummy and coffin are key items in the collections of the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The coffin inscriptions provide details of Takabuti’s personal circumstances as a woman of high status with the titles of ‘Lady of the House’ and ‘Noblewoman’, and the daughter of deceased parents Nespara and Tasenirit. According to stylistic and inscriptional evidence, Takabuti lived in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (c. 755-656 BC). Both the coffin and mummy were purchased in Luxor, suggesting that Takabuti had lived and died in Thebes and was probably buried on the West Bank.

Her father, Nespara, a middle-ranking priest of Amun, probably served in the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Despite a privileged upbringing within the neighbouring community, and probably marriage to someone from her own social level, Takabuti nevertheless lived in times of great political uncertainty and upheaval.

A new power, which emerged in Kush in the eighth century BC and established its capital at Napata, went on to adopt aspects of Egyptian civilisation and expand its influence locally. The rulers then progressed northwards to conquer Egypt and inaugurate the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, basing its capital at Thebes.