Mummy of Yuya, Tutankhamun's Great Grandfather

The mummy of Yuaa is that of an old, white-haired man, 1 m. 651 mill. in height. His hair, now stained yellow by embaiming materials, was perfectly white at the time of his death. It is long and wavy — when straightened it is more than 11 centimètres in length. Unlike his wife he shows no pronounced tendency to baldness.

His face is relatively short and elliptical, the total facial height being only 110 millimètres, whereas the bizygomatic breadth is 135 millimètres. His nose is prominent, aquiline and high bridged: at the same time the alae are wide, probably more so than in life, because the nostrils bave been dilated in the process of packing the nasal fossae with linen.

The nose is 56 millimètres long and 36 millimètres wide (alar measurement). The bridge of the nose projects 2 centimètres in front of the canthi.

The lips appear to be somewhat full. The orbits are elliptical and moderately far apart, the distance hetween the canthi being 32 millimètres.

The external palpebral diameter is 101 millimètres: the right orbit is 44X30 and the left 40X30 millimètres.

The jaw is moderately square. The bigonial diameter is 106 millimètres. The beard and moustache had not been shaved for two or three days before death, for the upper lip, chin and submental région are thickly studded with white hairs 2 to 3 millimètres in length, but on the masseteric région the hairs are more sparsely scattered. The eyebrows and eyelashes are well preserved, but, unlike the other hair, they are of a dark brown colour.

The orbits bave been plugged with small masses of linen in front of the sunken eyes, the eyelids being pulled down over the packing material; but no attempt was made to represent pupils by means of spots of black paint, as became the custom in the times of the XXIst Dynasty.

Unlike the ears of most of the royal mummies of the New Empire, Yuaa's were not pierced. The skin of the body generally and of the face has assumed a dark reddish brown colour, but on the prominences of the face the colour is much lighter, as though thèse parts had been rubbed.

The skin of the forehead, as well as that of the cheeks, is wrinkled. In attempting to détermine the âge that Yuaa had attained at the time of his death there is little to rely on beyond his general appearance, his white hair and wrinkled skin. If, on thèse slight grounds we estimate his âge as about sixty years, it must be understood that the mention of such a figure is little more than guesswork.

The wrappings were so extensively damaged and so brittle that it was altogether impossible lo détermine the order or arrangement of the fragments of transverse, oblique and longitudinal bandages which remained. Between the wrappings on the back and around the thighs there were two definite layers of straw, which had obviously been put there intentionally.

When we come to enquire into the racial characters of the body of Yuaa there is very little that we can definitely seize on as a clear indication of his origin and affinities.

@ A. K. O.

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