Elias submits a truly delightful (and by turns stomach-turning) expansion on last week’s mote about the artistic use of mummies: an entire scholarly article on the subject, titled “The Life and Death of Mummy Brown.” This article has it all, including the etymology of “mummy,” the history of “mummy unrollings,” and even a surprise appearance from Rudyard Kipling at an impromptu pre-Raphaelite burial of a tube of mummy brown:
This bizarre but rather touching episode must have had quite an impact on those present, including a teenaged Rudyard Kipling, who was Georgina’s nephew. Kipling used to spend every December with the Burne-Jones’ at their London home. Here is how he described the mummy episode some decades later: “He [Burne-Jones] descended in broad daylight with a tube of ‘Mummy Brown’ in his hand, saying that he had discovered it was made of dead Pharaohs and we must bury it accordingly. So we all went out and helped – according to the rites of Mizraim and Memphis, I hope – and to this day I could drive a spade within a foot of where that tube lies.”
