Dr. Peter Schertz
Photo: David Stover © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, August 2013
About Dr. Peter Schertz
Dr. Peter Justin Moon Schertz has served as VMFA’s Curator of Ancient Art since October 2006 and the Jack and Mary Ann Frable Curator of Ancient Art since 2007. He received a Certificate of Museum Studies in 1997 and a PhD in classical art and archaeology in 2004 from the University of Southern California, where he wrote the dissertation Seer or Victim? The Figure of Marsyas in Roman Art, Religion, and Politics under the supervision of John Pollini. He received his BA in classical languages and literature from the University of Chicago in 1987. His specialty is Roman art, with a focus on the intersection of art and culture, particularly art and religion. His current projects include a study of the original polychromy of the Arch of Titus and an examination of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in its Roman context. He is particularly interested in how new technologies can help us understand and interpret ancient art.
Interview Transcript
NR: How was Tjeby discovered and what is his history and life in the past?
PS: VMFA acquired Tjeby in 1953, along with a number of other objects that form the core of our Egyptian collection. We acquired him from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. And they, in conjunction with Harvard University, carried out a number of excavations in Egypt in the early 20th century. Tjeby had been discovered at a cemetery in 1923. The local government in Egypt was able to keep many of the finds from the excavation – but the institution that funded the excavation got a portion of their finds, due to a system called partage. Then, in the 1950’s, they were aware that the VMFA was establishing an ancient art collection, we were a young museum at that point, and they very kindly agreed to help us [with some of our storerooms].
NR: Can you talk any about how Tjeby, anything you know about how Tjeby would have lived actually in Egypt, or anything in general about what his life would have been like?
PS: In terms of what we know about who Tjeby was, he lived in the end of what was known as the First Intermediate period. Egyptian history is divided into several periods of stability, the old kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom, and the Late Period. In between those periods are other periods of relative instability. So the First Intermediate Period is an unstable period between the Old Kingdom, the time when the Egyptians built the Great Pyramids, and the Middle Kingdom. Tjeby dates to what is known as the Dynasty 11, so the 11th dynasty to rule Egypt. The 11th dynasty is the dynasty under which Egypt was reunited as a single kingdom. He was a court official-nobleman, [he was known as being close to the king,] as shown in the inscriptions. This means that he was pretty prominent and relatively important. Part of the reason [that we know] he was relatively important, is the fact that he was mummified. In the Old Kingdom, typically only Pharaohs and members of the royal family were mummified. But, again, in a period of instability, you’ve got a lot of people claiming to be Pharaohs and taking on the role of Pharaohs. Part of that role was being mummified – preserved for eternity. In some sense, you can think about it as a democratization of mummification; it wasn’t restricted to a single class – Tjeby certainly seems to have taken advantage of that democratization.
NR: What conservation efforts were taken to preserve Tjeby?
PS: Remember he’s a 4,000 year old mummy, which means he’s one of the old[est] mummies that’s survived and one of the oldest mummies in North America. So, on some level, the conservation measures were to preserve the remains of the person, so in some sense the conservation of Tjeby goes all the way back to the First Intermediate Period. But, I assume you mean what did we do to preserve Tjeby?
And largely what we did is just be very, very, careful with him. Because he survived 4,000 years – largely because of the climate in Egypt, which is very dry and very warm and very stable – once you take an object out of that environment – and especially because it was dark and he wasn’t being exposed to sunlight and other light sources – once you take an object out of that environment, there is going to be lots of deterioration. So, what we were able to do, was first of all, stabilize Tjeby – both the coffin and the mummy within the coffin. And that’s essentially where things are loose, the coffin is lined with plaster, much of which is already falling away, but we can consolidate [using] reversible materials and surviving plaster, so hopefully there won’t be additional losses.
When the museum received Tjeby from the MFA in Boston, there was other material in the coffin, linen wrappings had begun to deteriorate and some of them had fallen off. Some of the bones and teeth had fallen out of the wrappings, and those were gathered and kept in the conservation lab and studio at the museum. But, mainly it was just to be very careful. So for instance, when you come in here [where Tjeby is displayed], the lights look very low in the display case. When nobody is in this area of the gallery, the lights fade out into darkness. So again, that is limiting the light exposure. That is the major way we conserve him, but at some point we, maybe, will have to be a little more aggressive, but I am not sure when that point will be, maybe not for centuries.
NR: Can you explain what was found in the CT-scan of Tjeby?
PS: Several years ago, the museum did a major exhibition about mummies from the British Museum, that included a 3D scan of a CT-scan of a mummy in the British Museum. At that time, Mary Ann Frable, who is a medical doctor and a patron of the museum – and her husband, who [together] funded my position here – said [in so many words] “Peter, wouldn’t it be cool to make a CT Scan?” And I said, “Yeah! But, you know Tjeby’s old, he’s fragile, we made a CT Scan in the 1980’s, and it would cost money and staff resources. It would be a great idea, but I am not sure how feasible it would be.” More-or-less, at the same time, Jonathan Elias and a friend of his [Carter Lupton] of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, said, “Peter, that is such a lovely mummy, why don’t we CT-scan it?” But, I said, “There are so many mummies that have been CT-scanned, and he’s so old and fragile and we did a CT-scan in the 80’s, what would come of this?” And they said that he’s one of the oldest mummies in North America; he dates to a period we don’t know a lot about; there is a possibility we could find new information, not just about Tjeby, but about the history of mummification in Egypt. And, as a curator, I said, “Well, if a CT-scan can produce new knowledge, and useful knowledge, then it is worthwhile – provided the conservation department [would agree].” So the conservators and I discussed it, and Mary Ann Frable arranged with friends of hers in the medical community that they would allow us to use their imaging equipment, and the doctors agreed to do the CT-scan. And what we discovered was actually quite interesting. One of my hesitations about doing the CT-scan was that Tjeby had been described in 1986, as essentially a sack of bones that had lost the basic structure of the body. So, when we did the CT-scan, we actually discovered that very atypically, the legs and the arms were wrapped separately and those bones are still together. The rib cage had collapsed and the ribs were kind of scattered. There were toe, hand, and foot bones scattered throughout the mummy. According to the CT-scan, the teeth had shifted. But, interestingly we discovered that the jaw had been deliberately dis-articulated – separated from the skull – and the jaw bone is some place around here [Dr. Schertz points to his collar bone and lower neck] and, of course, the head is here [motions to head]. With the modern scanning technology, it is so much more accurate than the 1980’s; we were able to gather that the head is surrounded with what’s probably a mud pack, to give it the form of a head still. And that on top of it, we had no idea that there was a mummy mask beneath the wrappings. The great thing about the CT-scan is that we find all of this information without doing any damage to the physical integrity of the mummy as he exists today. Plus the mummy mask is particularly interesting, because Dr. Elias, who is a trained Egyptologist, hadn’t realized that mummy masks at this time were regularly placed over the head, or face, of the mummy and wrapped. He was used to seeing them unwrapped and displayed in museums, and he just assumed that, as in later periods, the mask was placed over the mummy, but at this time it was beneath the wrappings. So, that was actually really informative for him, and certainly for me as well.
NR: Why is Tjeby displayed the way he is today with the lights and the glass case?
PS: Tjeby came to the museum in 1953, and in the 60’s and 70’s he was displayed and mounted in what was essentially a hypothetical reconstruction of a looted Egyptian tomb. People loved that display. In 1983, there was a decision by the director of the museum at the time, that it was not appropriate to display human remains in an art museum – that it wasn’t respectful to the mummy – that was part of a discussion that was happening internationally about the display of mummies, and we took Tjeby off view. We continued to display the coffin, but we covered the lid of the coffin with Tjeby inside, so no one could see him. When I got to the museum in 2006, many, many people said – [people of] a certain age – said, “I remember coming to the museum as a kid and it was so cool to see the mummies and we would go up this dimly lit ramp, surrounded by Egyptian artifacts, and we got to the top and we would shift position, and look down, and we would see this recreated, looted tomb with mummies in it.” And people remember that. It formed lifelong connections to museums [among these people] and to ancient art. One of the things I had to think about as a curator, is how we form those connections. I think every museum curator and every museum professional has to think, how do we make a connection between our public and our institution and our collections? And I said, “Well, nothing inspires like a good mummy! I love my mummy, I love my Tjeby!” And intellectually, we also discussed that it isvery important in ancient Egyptian culture that the dead be preserved and when you say their names – that’s why I keep saying Tjeby and not the mummy – when you say the names of the deceased, you are giving them life. And my view is that it is, in kind of a weird way, that by putting him on view, by encouraging people to say his name, we are honoring some of his beliefs of what should happen for him when he dies. We do not give him offerings, but we do, somehow respect the beliefs of ancient Egypt.
Now, this whole thing began with you asking how we chose the lights and the display. There were a couple of factors in this. First of all, the preservation issues. The coffin is made out of wood, the mummy is made out of resin-glued linens, and light, even carefully controlled light, can be very disruptive to organic material. So keeping lights down low is very important. You can see that in museums whenever there are textiles or some papers they dim the lights because of the danger of light. We wanted to do it for conservation issues, but also to give an experience. So, if you were to come into this gallery when no one else is here and come to the area where Tjeby is, your first impression is that it is very dark and dim. As you enter the area there is a motion sensor that activates the light and the light comes on. Its not nearly as dramatic as looking down into a looted tomb, but my hope is that some people are going to think, “Oh!” it is going to form a memory, for especially for kids when they come in here – it was dark and it suddenly lights up and you can see. The other aspect of the display that we put a lot of thought into is that it is not just Tjeby, it is other material from the First Intermediate Period. This is a very poverty-ridden period of Egyptian history. And the fact that this is a poorer period of Egyptian history made for very interesting artifacts, but they are certainly not the great works of art, which makes the point that archaeology is not a treasure hunt it is the exploration of how people in the past lived. These are just day-to-day objects like a razor, very plain vessels, a pair of wood sandals, and a painted relief – for which we also have excavation photography. And it really teaches people – you know it is sort of the antidote or the answer to the Indiana-Jones presentation of archaeology – going after the great and important and beautiful objects. That is not what archaeology is about, it is about exploring the human past and how people lived.
NR: What ethical concerns are there in displaying human remains in an art museum?
PS: That is a dilemma. I think it is very important to be respectful about the display of mummies and any human remains – and other museums display shrunken heads, for instance. But, in this case, because he is an Egyptian, and because the Egyptians deliberately preserved the bodies of their deceased and had a cult for the deceased, which involved making daily offerings to them and giving them life by reciting their names or saying their names, for us to display an Egyptian human remain, it respects some of their beliefs at least on some level. Now, if these were remains from a different cultural context or a more recent culture that wasn’t pleased about us having their remains, or had people that could say, “Oh, that’s my ancestor you are displaying, don’t do that,” it would be a different calculation. But, with Egyptian material, you think, that it can be done. One of the really nice things that I heard about our display, is that our former director [Paul Perrot] came to visit the museum several years ago, and wanted to see the Egyptian collection, and I was very, very nervous because I know that he had taken Tjeby off view. And there was a nice little memo from the Director’s office in 1983, as to why we shouldn’t display him. But, I brought him down here and he said, “I have no problem with this. This is a respectful display of Tjeby.” In the display, aside from not being voyeuristic about it, we also have him lying on his side, as he was initially laid in his coffin. And we were able to orient the coffin towards the east; at this time in Egyptian culture, the dead were oriented towards the east, towards the rising sun, as a symbol of renewal, of resurrection. So we did everything we could think of to be respectful of him.