Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

JUAN JOSÉ CASTILLOS: Eso-Eris, the Wandering Mummy

Eso-Eris the Wandering Mummy F

or more than one hundred years an ancient Egyptian mummy has been the vedette and undisputed main attraction of several Uruguayan museums. This paper conveys the unusual adventures of this lady and attempts to elaborate on the events that led to its acquisition and later developments as well as on numerous aspects of the studies carried out on these objects by Uruguayan and other scholars. To the right, the main inscription on the coffin of the Montevideo mummy and to the left, the mask that was part of the funerary assemblage bought by L. Viglione. About 2,600 years ago a young woman bearing the pious name of Ast Wrt (Isis-the-Great) lived in the city of Akhmim, situated in northern Upper Egypt, and worked in the temple of the god Min there carrying out the duties of a sistrum player. In the ancient Egyptian temples there were dancers, singers and musicians, priests and priestesses of lower categories, who performed their art during the numerous ceremonies and festivities in honour of the god who lived in that earthly residence and who often left it to visit other gods in neighbouring