Lady Meux's 'Cursed' Mummy
This is the face of Lady Valerie Meux's 'cursed' mummy, the high priest Nesmin. His mummy and coffin were the centrepiece of her collection of Egyptian antiquities once housed at Theobald's Park, Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire.
His coffin design indicates that he lived at Akhmim in Middle-Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, some 2,300 years ago.
Nesmin (his name was once translated as Nes-Amsu) was brought to England in 1885 by Walter 'Midge' Ingram, a friend of Lady Meux and her husband, Henry. He paid £60 for the mummy and coffin in a deal which was disputed and resulted in a violent row. Ingram would later be trampled to death four years later during an elephant hunt, a gruesome end put down to a curse associated with Nesmin.
Ingram gave the mummy and coffin to Valerie in 1885. Nes-Amin cartonnage mummy-mask was given to the British Museum (EA24402), but is not on display.
On Lady Meux's death in 1910, her Egyptian treasures were offered to the British Museum on the provision that they would be displayed as a separate collection. The museum refused and, in May 1911,the collection went to public auction. Agents for the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst bought Nesmin for £72 and he was shipped to California. In 1938, Nesmin was acquired by the Rhode Island School of Design where he remains today.
Below are two videos of Nesmin in the Rhode Island School of Design. The first shows him being moved from his usual exhibition place to a new location for a special exhibition. The second shows his returns to a renovated gallery.
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