Egyptian mummy set to extend time on Leeside

A 2,300-year-old mummy, which is believed to have been in the possession of UCC since the 1890s, looks set to extend its stay in Cork for the foreseeable future due to ongoing political unrest in Egypt.While it is unclear how UCC came to possess the mummy, it is believed to be that of a senior Egyptian official who died circa. 300BC. However, the sarcophagus in which the mummy was contained is believed to be approximately 300 years older, having been dated to between 600BC and 625BC.The mummy, which arrived in UCC towards the end of the 19^th century, was first put on public display in 1903, seven years before the exportation of mummified remains out of Egypt was made illegal. For the last 23 years the mummy has remained in safe storage and is no longer on public display within the university, with Egyptian officials stating that the mummy could remain in UCC if it would be damaged by transporting it to Egypt.

It appears that UCC, known at the time as Queen’s College Cork, sought to mirror this pattern and bring the history of Egypt to Irish shores.

However in recent years Egyptian officials have made efforts to bring the mummy back to its original home, wishing for the mummy to be put on public display at the Grand Egyptian Museum when it opens in 2015. Despite these wishes UCC administrators speaking at a meeting in the Egyptian Embassy in Dublin argued that the political fallout of the Arab Spring meant that returning the mummy to Egypt was not currently viable.In the months after the Arab Spring Egypt reported that many priceless artefacts had been stolen from several museums and were subsequently sold on the black market, a fact which means the mummy may be safer in Cork. The matter became more clouded in recent months as clashes between rival military factions have left an air of uncertainty over the future of the African state.Over the last few years the debate over the presence of Egyptian artefacts in museums across the world, such as the British Museum in London, and whether they should be returned to Egypt has grown significantly. While the artefacts have long been featured in Western museums, Egypt feels it is losing out on tourism, as well as the ownership of its history due to the housing of the artefacts outside their country of origin.While no record of how the mummy came to wind up in UCC exists, throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th century there was a trend within English and Scottish universities to hold exhibitions which highlighted artefacts from classic civilisations. Therefore it appears that UCC, known at the time as Queen’s College Cork, sought to mirror this pattern and bring the history of Egypt to Irish shores.As a result of the mysterious origins, conflicting stories to explain the mummy’s journey to Ireland have emerged. While some claim that the remains were brought back to Cork by medicine students visiting Egypt, the prevailing thought is that the artefact was donated to UCC by a closing museum or from a private collection.Regardless of how the mummy came to reside in UCC, with the political situation in Egypt unlikely to cool down any time soon, it appears the artefact will remain in Cork for the foreseeable future.