Persian Princess
Encyclopedia
The Persian Princess or Persian Mummy is a mummy
of an alleged Persian princess that surfaced in Pakistani Baluchistan
in October 2000. After huge publicity and further investigation, the mummy proved to be an archaeological forgery
and possibly a murder
victim.
in Baluchistan near the border of Afghanistan
. Reeki told them that he had received it from an Iran
ian named Sharif Shah Bakhi who had said that he had found it after an earthquake near Quetta
. The mummy had been in sale in the black antiquities market for equivalent to $11–30 million. Reeki and Aqbar were accused of violating the country's Antiquities Act with a possible ten years in prison.
of Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University announced that the mummy seemed to be a princess dated circa 600 BC.
The mummy was wrapped in ancient Egypt
ian style and rested in a gilded wooden coffin with cuneiform
carvings inside a stone sarcophagus
. The coffin had been carved with a large faravahar
image. The mummy was atop a layer of mixture of wax and honey and was covered by a stone slab and it had a golden crown on its brow. An inscription on the golden chest plate claimed that she was the relatively unknown Rhodugune, a daughter of king Xerxes I of Persia
and a member of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Archaeologists speculated that she might have been an Egyptian princess married to a Persian prince or a daughter of Cyrus the Great
of Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. However, because mummification had been primarily Egyptian practice, they had not encountered any mummies in Persia before.
and Pakistan soon began to argue about the ownership of the mummy. The Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization claimed her as a member of Persian royal family and demanded the mummy's return. Pakistan's Archaeological Department HQ said that it belonged to Pakistan because it had been found in Baluchistan. The Taliban of Afghanistan also made a claim. People in Quetta demanded that the police should return the mummy to them.
In November 2000, the mummy was placed in display in the National Museum of Pakistan.
to come out about an incident the previous March when he was shown photographs of a similar mummy. Amanollah Riggi, a middleman working in behalf of an unidentified antiquities dealer in Pakistan, had approached him, claiming its owners were a Zoroastrian family who had brought it to the country. The seller had claimed that was a daughter of Xerxes, based on translation of the cuneiform of the breastplate.
The cuneiform text on the breastplate contained a passage from the Behistun inscription
in western Iran. The Behistun inscription was carved during the reign of Darius, the father of Xerxes. When the dealer's representative had sent a piece of a coffin to be carbon dated, analysis had shown that the coffin was only maybe 250 years old. Muscarella had suspected a forgery and severed contact. He had informed Interpol
through the FBI.
When Pakistani professor Ahmad Dani, director of the Institute of Asian Civilizations in Islamabad, studied the item he realized the corpse was not as old as the coffin. The mat below the body was maybe five years old. He contacted Asma Ibrahim, the curator of the Pakistani National Museum in Karachi, who investigated further. During the investigation, Iran and Taliban repeated their demands. Taliban claimed that they had apprehended the smugglers that had taken the mummy out of Afghanistan.
The inscriptions on the breastplate were not in proper grammatical Persian. Instead of a Persian form the daughter's name, Wardegauna, forgers had used a Greek version Rhodugune. CAT and X-ray
scans in Agha Khan Hospital indicated that the mummification
had not been made following ancient Egyptian custom - many internal organs were removed but the brain was still inside the skull, for example. Tendons that would have decayed over centuries were still intact.
The Edhi Foundation
took custody of the body, and on August 5, 2005 announced that it was to be interred with proper burial rites. , however, the body still remains unburied due to bureaucratic delays.
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
of an alleged Persian princess that surfaced in Pakistani Baluchistan
Balochistan (Pakistan)
Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...
in October 2000. After huge publicity and further investigation, the mummy proved to be an archaeological forgery
Archaeological forgery
Archaeological forgery is the manufacture of supposedly ancient items that are sold to the antiquities market and may even end up in the collections of museums. It is related to art forgery....
and possibly a murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
victim.
Discovery
The mummy was found October 19, 2000. Pakistani authorities received a tip that one Ali Aqbar had videotape that showed he had a mummy for sale. Aqbar led the police to the house of tribal leader Wali Mohammed Reeki in KharanKharan
Kharan can refer to:* Kharan, Pakistan, city in Balochistan.* Kharan District, district of Balochistan, Pakistan* Kharan , former princely state* Kharan Desert* The upper Halil River* Haran, Azerbaijan...
in Baluchistan near the border of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. Reeki told them that he had received it from an Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian named Sharif Shah Bakhi who had said that he had found it after an earthquake near Quetta
Quetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
. The mummy had been in sale in the black antiquities market for equivalent to $11–30 million. Reeki and Aqbar were accused of violating the country's Antiquities Act with a possible ten years in prison.
Identification
In a press conference on October 26, archaeologist Ahmad Hasan DaniAhmad Hasan Dani
Professor Ahmad Hasan Dani FRAS, SI, HI , was a Pakistani intellectual, archaeologist, historian, and linguist. He was among the foremost authorities on Central Asian and South Asian archaeology and history. He introduced archaeology as a discipline in higher education in Pakistan and Bangladesh...
of Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University announced that the mummy seemed to be a princess dated circa 600 BC.
The mummy was wrapped in ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian style and rested in a gilded wooden coffin with cuneiform
Cuneiform script
Cuneiform script )) is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs...
carvings inside a stone sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
. The coffin had been carved with a large faravahar
Faravahar
Faravahar is one of the best-known symbols of Zoroastrianism, the state religion of ancient Iran. This religious-cultural symbol was adapted by the Pahlavi dynasty to represent the Iranian nation....
image. The mummy was atop a layer of mixture of wax and honey and was covered by a stone slab and it had a golden crown on its brow. An inscription on the golden chest plate claimed that she was the relatively unknown Rhodugune, a daughter of king Xerxes I of Persia
Xerxes I of Persia
Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...
and a member of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Archaeologists speculated that she might have been an Egyptian princess married to a Persian prince or a daughter of Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
of Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. However, because mummification had been primarily Egyptian practice, they had not encountered any mummies in Persia before.
Ownership
The governments of IranIran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and Pakistan soon began to argue about the ownership of the mummy. The Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization claimed her as a member of Persian royal family and demanded the mummy's return. Pakistan's Archaeological Department HQ said that it belonged to Pakistan because it had been found in Baluchistan. The Taliban of Afghanistan also made a claim. People in Quetta demanded that the police should return the mummy to them.
In November 2000, the mummy was placed in display in the National Museum of Pakistan.
Doubts
News of the Persian Princess prompted American archaeologist Oscar White MuscarellaOscar White Muscarella
Oscar White Muscarella is a US archaeologist and former curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His specialty is the antique art and archeology of the Near East. Muscarella is an untiring opponent of robbery excavations, and some regard him as the "conscience of the industry". Dr. Muscarella...
to come out about an incident the previous March when he was shown photographs of a similar mummy. Amanollah Riggi, a middleman working in behalf of an unidentified antiquities dealer in Pakistan, had approached him, claiming its owners were a Zoroastrian family who had brought it to the country. The seller had claimed that was a daughter of Xerxes, based on translation of the cuneiform of the breastplate.
The cuneiform text on the breastplate contained a passage from the Behistun inscription
Behistun Inscription
The Behistun Inscription The Behistun Inscription The Behistun Inscription (also Bistun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون The Behistun Inscription (also Bistun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون...
in western Iran. The Behistun inscription was carved during the reign of Darius, the father of Xerxes. When the dealer's representative had sent a piece of a coffin to be carbon dated, analysis had shown that the coffin was only maybe 250 years old. Muscarella had suspected a forgery and severed contact. He had informed Interpol
Interpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
through the FBI.
When Pakistani professor Ahmad Dani, director of the Institute of Asian Civilizations in Islamabad, studied the item he realized the corpse was not as old as the coffin. The mat below the body was maybe five years old. He contacted Asma Ibrahim, the curator of the Pakistani National Museum in Karachi, who investigated further. During the investigation, Iran and Taliban repeated their demands. Taliban claimed that they had apprehended the smugglers that had taken the mummy out of Afghanistan.
The inscriptions on the breastplate were not in proper grammatical Persian. Instead of a Persian form the daughter's name, Wardegauna, forgers had used a Greek version Rhodugune. CAT and X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
scans in Agha Khan Hospital indicated that the mummification
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
had not been made following ancient Egyptian custom - many internal organs were removed but the brain was still inside the skull, for example. Tendons that would have decayed over centuries were still intact.
Fate
Ibrahim concluded in an April 17, 2001 report that the Persian Princess was in fact a modern woman about 21–25 years of age, who had died around 1996, possibly killed with a blunt instrument to the neck. Her teeth had been removed after death and her hip joint, pelvis and backbone damaged, before the body had been filled with powder. Police began to investigate a possible murder and arrested a number of suspects in Baluchistan.The Edhi Foundation
Edhi Foundation
The Edhi Foundation is a non-profit social welfare program in Pakistan, founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1951.Edhi is the head of the organization and his wife Bilquis, a nurse, oversees the maternity and adoption services of the foundation. Its headquarters are in Karachi, Pakistan.The Edhi...
took custody of the body, and on August 5, 2005 announced that it was to be interred with proper burial rites. , however, the body still remains unburied due to bureaucratic delays.
Other uses of the term
- there is a play named the Persian Princess by Lewis TheobaldLewis TheobaldLewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...
(from the 18th century).