In 1994, using ancient tools and materials, Bob Brier and Ronald Wade became the first people in 2000 years to mummify a human cadaver in the ancient Egyptian style.  In his Norton lecture, “Mummification: Resurrection of an Ancient Art,” Dr. Brier will speak about the project’s goal to learn more about the tools and surgical procedures used by ancient embalmers to prepare the bodies of the pharaohs.  Brier and Wade went to Egypt to obtain natron, the dehydrating agent used by the ancient embalmers, and also obtained frankincense and myrrh, just as the Egyptians did.  Working at the University of Maryland Medical School, the two researchers used replicas of ancient tools to remove the brain through the nose and internal organs through a three-inch abdominal incision.  The program was the subject of the National Geographic television documentary, Mr. Mummy. 

Dr. Bob Brier has worked in Egypt for more than 30 years, and is one of the world’s foremost authorities on mummies.  He is Senior Research Fellow at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and his previous projects include the reconstruction of an Egyptian nobleman’s tomb for the Hillwood Art Museum at C.W. Post, and the research of ancient Egyptian mummification techniques.  He is the author of numerous books, including The Murder of Tutankhamen (1998), and he has collaborated on several other television specials and series, including “Mummy Detective,” “The Great Egyptians,” and “Unwrapped, the Mysterious World of Mummies”.

Dr. Brier will be giving a Norton Lecture, named for Charles Eliot Norton, the founder and first President of the Archaeological Institute of America and former Professor of the History of Art at Harvard University.  The Norton Lectureship is part of the AIA’s National Lecture Program. Sponsored by the Department of Archaeology at Dickinson College. For more information, contact archaeology@dickinson.edu or 717-245-1519. This lecture is free and open to the public.