The unwrapped royal mummy, modestly draped with a linen cloth, lies in a dim, quiet room on the third floor of the Michael C. Carlos Museum, surrounded by screened reproductions of colorful tomb paintings.

Groups of schoolchildren are hushed as they file past the 3,000-year-old Pharaoh, now thought by most scholars to be Ramesses I, founder of one of Egypt’s most powerful dynasties, who ruled from 1293 to 1291 B.C.

After years of study and conservation, the most famous mummy in the museum’s collection is on view for the first time in “Ramesses I—The Search for the Lost Pharaoh.” After the exhibition concludes on September 14, the Egyptian ruler will be returned to the Cairo Museum.

“This shows that amazing discoveries in the most unlikely of places are still to be made,” said Peter Lacovara, curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art.

Through art and artifacts, site maps and photographs, and video and computer imagery, the museum tells the tale of the mummy’s adventurous route to Atlanta. Also on display are tomb treasures and embalming equipment, granite sculptures of Pharaoh heads, mummy bandages, and court transcripts on papyrus.

Emory’s involvement with the missing Pharaoh began in 1999, when Carlos Museum officials heard about ten mummies and other Egyptian artifacts being sold by the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame, which was closing up shop.

Rumor had it that one of these mummies might be the long-lost remains of Ramesses I, who was sold on the black market in Luxor in the mid-nineteenth century after his tomb was raided.

After Emory raised nearly two million dollars from the Atlanta community to purchase the entire collection, the mummies, coffins, and antiquities were moved to the Carlos Museum, where they were restored and analyzed by conservators, Egyptologists, radiologists, and geneticists. X-rays and CT scans were taken at Emory Hospital to determine the age, gender, and identifying characteristics of the mummies.

Evidence started mounting that the five-foot-five-inch male, who came without wrappings or coffin, was the missing nineteenth-dynasty Pharaoh. While DNA tests were inconclusive, radiocarbon dating placed the mummy’s origins in the right era, and his age at death was determined to be in his sixties, which also fit what was known about Ramesses I.

The mummy’s arms are crossed over his chest, he has a large amount of expensive molten resin in his skull, and his toes are splayed – all characteristics signifying a mummy of royal status.

Finally, there is the striking family resemblance: the mummy has a slender build, a prominent, hooked nose, a high forehead, and arched feet. These traits are shared with Ramesses I’s son, Seti I, and his grandson, Ramesses II (the Great), both of whom are on display at the Cairo Museum. Photographs of Seti I’s and Ramesses II’s remains are included in the Carlos exhibition for comparison.

These physical characteristics as well as many extra features, such as a virtual “fly-through” inside the body of Ramesses I, can be viewed on computer stations set up at the exhibit, or at http://carlos.emory.edu/RAMESSES.

Also among the 145 objects the Carlos Museum purchased from the Niagara Falls Museum were four small fragments of painted limestone relief.

When the lot was unpacked and examined in Atlanta, the identity of these fragments were immediately apparent to Lacovara. “I had been to Seti I’s tomb and immediately recognized the quality and type of painted relief,” said Lacovara, who had plaster casts made of the fragments and brought them to the tomb in Egypt himself to check their fit. “They were a perfect match.”

In April, under the guardianship of Zahi Hawass, general director of Egypt’s Supreme Council on Antiquities, they were sent back to be replaced in Seti’s tomb as part of a full-scale restoration.

As for Ramesses I, Delta Airlines has agreed to transport the mummy to Paris where it will be transferred to an Egypt Air flight to Cairo.

“It is exciting to be collaborating more closely with our colleagues in Egypt, to be moving toward the moment when we return the mummy to the people of Egypt, and to share the exhibition with visitors before its departure,” Lacovara said.

The Pharaoh, lost in anonymity for so long, would probably relish this return to his regal station, with crowds fawning and flattering as he patiently awaits repatriation.

“Look at that!” said one elementary-aged student, standing on tiptoe to peer inside the mummy’s mouth. “He’s got pretty good teeth for such an old guy.”–M.J.L.

To read more about the Return of the Mummy, go to: www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/autumn2002/enigma.html