The Feminine Position of the Mummy
The mummy was laid out in the traditional 18'th Dynasty feminine pose, with its right arm fully extended along the right side of the body, and the left arm bent with the hand resting over the chest. (J. L. Smith, TTAA, 63; Ayrton, ToQT, 9-10.) Davis, however, described the mummy's hands as "clasped" (ToQT, 2.) Since the mummy was later determined to be that of a male (G. E. Smith, RM, 51ff., and all subsequent examinations) the feminine positioning of the arms is puzzling and has never been satisfactorily explained. As if to augment the feminizing of the burial, the gold foil bracelets found on the mummy's arms (see below) were placed in a fashion more appropriate to a female than to a royal male (Bell, JARCE 27 [1990], 133, and n. 288, where Bell refers to C. Vandersleyen, Les Guerres d'Amosis [Brussels, 1971], 42-43, for a discussion of the proper placement of bracelets on a king's body.) To this may be added the positioning of the vulture pectoral on the mummy's head, which, if intentional, may have been a lampoon on the Nekhbet crown often worn by royal women. The coffin had also been originally designed for a female.
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