Daily British Whig (1850), 20 Oct 1925, p. 9

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"RIVAL TO KING TUT'S TOMB UNEARTHED TREASURES DISEORGED WHEN ANCIENT MUSEUM FOUND IN STOREHOUSE oyal And Plebian Mummies Jostle Much Abused Head Of England's George HL.--Shawl Of Mary Queen Of Scots And Dusky Flappers' Lingerie Montreal's Rip Van Winkle among museums, the museum of the old Natural History Society of Montreal, which has lain buried for twenty years Fi a downtown storeroom, has disgorged treasures enough to set historians 4nd naturalists agog. Mummies hundreds of years older than Tytankhamen,--one a princess of £gypt and the other a poor man of the army; the long lost head of the statue of King George I11. of England and the rare and curious from all over the world have been dug out, carefully dusted and brought to light at the Patho- logical Institute, MoGill University, which has taken over the old museum with other assets of the society and its commitments. Museum expérts have been turned loose among the collection and have bad a field day. They have X-rayed the mummies and found out all their secrets--thefr ages, their aches and pains and what not. They have found | that the princess was a poor old woman of sixty odd years who had lost most all her teeth, and had "'rheumatics" so badly that she grunted when she stooped. They have found out that the soldier had broken a rib in his lifetime, probably in a "scrap.'"' Mummies' hearts are taken out and put In a jar when the bodies are embalmed, but X-ray operators were thrilled to find some ob- ject in the male mummy in what should have been the empty place left by his heart. It may be a roll of papyrus which may throw light on far-off ages. Now all the experts are "'i{ching" to get at it, but the cutting open of & mummy is a much more serious business than the cutting open of an ordine ary corpse and many formalities and the gaining of official permission may Le necessary preliminaries. One hundred years of collection by the Natural History Society of Mont- real, now disbanded, are represented in the contents of the muse That the members were enthusiasts and the work a labor of love is shown by the variety and scope of the things they collected, as well as by thelr rarety, There is a fine collection of weapons, representing a hundred deaths; rare Egyptian antiquities, including papyrus as yet undeciphered; and bricks made with straw stamped with the stamp of the Pharaoh who oppressed the laraclites; a fragile shawl of yellowéd lace worn by Mary Queen of Scots; Egyptian beauties' "make-up" Jars of the tiie of the Pharaohs: Indian "urios, rare and extinct birds and & mass of other material, filling to capacity cue of the largest theatres In the Institute ang overflowing into the gallery THE ABUSED HEAD OF GEORGE IIL er's axe, A royal welcome was given by the experts to the head of George 111. His re-appearance is of trans-Atlantic in- terest, and he 'was given at once a position of prominence on a pedestal 'mprovised of packing cases. The head was discovered, stuck on to the plas- or shoulders of a Greek god, and was vasily discernible as the head of a statue by its great weight as compared with the plaster base to which it had bgen attached. No more romantic adventures ever Uefell the head that wears a crown It was presented to the Nae tural History Society many years ago by & Montreal lady of old Scottish fame y. SPICES AND PITCH Most ancient of "museum con~ tents now undergathe classification are the Egyptian antiquities, with the mummies holding pride of place. Ex. Perts have fixed theff dates as fron 800 to one thousand years before "Tuts ankhamen. They are of particular in- terest, as illustrating the difference in the meth. than "those which befell the head of ods of embalming the person the statue of King Geors® III. of England, Montreal's first tatue, some authorities state. Seni, out from wo. England, it was erected . h a pedestal | 1: in Place d'Armes abort 1774 and showed the monarch as of young man. Its troubles began wit | the coming [She had a beautifully into force of the Quekije Act. . The |Phagus, covered . with minds of -the people of Quebec were Poasenting troubled and divided a: to allegiance in those days whén | rebellion was seething to the South. Malcontents ran scurrilous articles in a small Journal of the time aga. \st the Eng- lish Government, and one morning the city woke up to find that the statue had been sub, to insult and out- rage. The face had been daubed with eye h cloth only, painted sarco- hieroglyphics, prayers and inscriptions. People had a rough coffin or hone at all. From the characters on the sarco: Dhagus, experts have determined the entity of the Princess. Over the Painted representation of her at the head of the 1 house. ; In each hand is a AB sig- nifying her priestly offi She is " Ofie pictured representation is that of the judgment day. Five lesser gods are seen with five others behind, four With animal heads and one with the of a man. In front of the last and y to be carried across th river which all dead had to cross. » On the inside edge of the » us is a prayer to the Tod anya of he. spirit journeying to the that the god tra: Rag tieving by way of the caverns of this TI ahs tes e ot Ihe departed tra yal | ure of ® There is also a fresco painting, in colors still bright, tiles made of mud and straw, from an arched Egyptian tomb, and two water colored fragments of a pavement, of limestone taken from Belzoni's tom , negr Thebes. - An Egyptian antiquity of great in- terest is a papyrus holder, with the erect figure of the god Horus at one end and at the other a slot in which the papyrus was placed. The model- lng is finely done, but the papyrus is missing from the slot. Other fine models of gods and goddesses are in the collection,--the finest being a fig- the trinity of gods,--Osirls, Isis and their son Anubis, of tian cosmetic jars demon- strates that women from time imme- morial have understood the gentle art of ""make-up."' The jars are tall, about nine inches high and are made of pottery. The covers are detachable and are fashioned in the likeness of the heads of'the household gods of Jars were placed: on what in modern days would be The front pointed at the top like a rdof, ashes have long 3 iil =v © Er jes Reappearing after twenty years' ob. livion in a Montreal down-town store- room, a group of objects from the old Natural History Society Museum of Montreal, which has been resur- rected and handed over to McGill University. Top Row--A group of Egyptian an- nities. Left to right: A holder of great antiquity, with a ure of the god Horus standing at end. The fig- one A group | The; by Aztecs against the Spaniards when the latter first invaded Old Mex- ico. A McGill"expert pronounced them to be the most beautifully balanced weapons he had ever seen, slot is the cavity] si laid to rest about, it is to 1,000 years before She was embalmed i spices and cloths of finest linen, now with age, but still strong H Dated Ioetiotions ani wraj in rowned and durable s (4) is_covered with ayers, In and blues, as fresh as if The inscriptions ted represen- de od Amen-Ra, royal. each side is of h office. Be show i through the po the Journey and on on enemies. An X-ray and green stone, and inla eries ornament the stocks that she was of the blood | and the plume, Other scenes and underworld, for safe con. photograph ys and trac- - taken at McGill University shows her to have been about 60 years old at death, with poor teeth and rheuma- m ee Loos King G . of England, by now the most. adventurous royal head in the western world. Presented by that Sn dt from En, and erect n ace @'Armes about 1774, Its first sdven- ture was to be daubed with black and decked with a necklace of Next, the head body, by An vaded 'eal during the Revolution, and cast down a well. tI stayed there many years. Recovered, it passed inte Government hands, finally to go to the old Natural History Society. neighborhood stretched the Indian village of Hochelaga. Sir William Dawson, McGill's famous principal and geologist, excavated on tite corner of Mansfield street some fine pieces of Indian pottery, finely decorated, rra | 20 Indian pipe in perfect preservation, several portions of pipes and bones of animals eaten as food by the Indians, remains of many feasts, Here was dug up also the tooth of a bear and several deer bones. Fine fossil fishes are some of the most interesting objects in the geo- logieal collection. There is a remark- able fossil of a fish in & thin layer of , and I fishes, perfect in every detail, in a layer of old sea floor from Lebamen, Syria. like girls today, shun volumins e , shun and are ous clothes, their Fete of clothing A valuable specimen of the Labrador duck, now extinct. storage has not spoiled it, and it is still in perfect condition, One was last seen in Montreal in 1875. is a wedding apron, spun, woven and embroidered by Mrs. Almy, of Mont- real, in that year. It was presented to the Natural History Society by her great, great granddaughter, Mrs, EK. Atwater, also-of this city, . SOME RARE BIRDS - The Natural History Society was noted for its fine collection of birds, including many rare and extinct spec. imens. Unfortunately, twenty years' ' | storage has not improved them, since | many of them were improperly pack- ed. A large number are ruined, but ractically all the rare and extinct rds have been saved. Of the former class is the magnifi- cent Whistling Swan, a huge bird which is now seldom seen in or near civilization. These beautiful birds, of great size, height and breadth of wing, snowy white in color, hive been rithiessly slaughtered off. Act ually, at one time, they were sold In Chicago at three dollars a dozen. Two were shot at Chambly in 1883 and one in September, 1885, on a spur _ of Mount Royal. The last seen in these regions was at Laprairie in 18091. XN usting Swans flew high and by night, A fine specimen also of the passens ger pigeon, now A been preserved in the museum. birds flew over 4 -

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