A Mystery from the Mummy-Pits

Holt's story of his work on Ankh-Hap is very personal and intimate, eminently readable and lively, and brings Ankh-Hap to life. It emphasizes the importance of studying mummies in order that the dead may live again and be remembered, connecting us to our shared past and humanity. * Salima Ikram, Author of Ancient Egypt: An Introduction * Prior to the modern era of relatively responsible archaeology, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often revealed a fascination with the seedier side of Egyptomania. This resulted in the tragic mistreatment of ancient Egyptian human remains to serve a wide range of commercial agendas. In this engaging and readable account, Frank L. Holt provides some much needed context for this era with a story that cuts across multiple layers of American society. * Peter Der Manuelian, Author of Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology * There are many books about mummies, but Frank L. Holt's is a unique, informative, and fascinating contribution to the subject. Based on several decades of detective research, it tells the story of the Ankh-Hap mummy: from its origin to its departure from the mummy pits of late nineteenth-century Egypt to its permanent home in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Along the way, readers are treated to the bonus of a concise history of mummy-mania. * Ronald H. Fritze, Author of Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession, and Fantasy * Frank Holt's very readable account of Ankh-Hap, a Ptolemaic-era mummy appropriated in the 19th century from a tomb in Egypt, is a unique, informative, and fascinating contribution to the study of ancient Egyptian mummified remains... Offers readers a rare glimpse inside a dark chapter of mummy history, and provides a salutary example of what many mummies endured at that time. * The Past *