Discovered by Flinders Petrie and the British School of Archaeology in 1907 at Rifeh in Middle Egypt.
The tomb of the two brothers, Khnum-Nakht and Nekht-Ankh, was discovered by a workman called Erfai, working under the supervision of British Egyptologist Ernest Mackay in the course of official excavations directed by Sir William Flinders Petrie (1852-1942), within the British School of Archaeology.
The contents of the burial site were passed to the Manchester Museum where they were studied by Margaret Murray (1908) and more recently by Prof. Rosalie David (1979). The two brothers came from Der Rifeh in Middle Egypt and originate from the 12th Dynasty (c.1985-1773 BC).
Their burial was the finest non-royal tomb found in that area.
Left - Body coffin of Khnum-Nakht. Wooden coffin held the body of the Negroid brother. The eyes of limestone and obsidian are inserted in a bronze rim.
Right - body coffin of Nekht-Ankh. Coffin has a face which is painted black, although it held the remains of the non-Negroid brother.
Unwrapping
the 'Two Brothers'
Both
Professor Flinders Petrie and Dr. Margaret Murray, the first Egyptologist
at the Manchester Museum, were convinced that only by continued
study of the objects, which included the mummies themselves, would
the efforts of archaeologists be enhanced. So in 1908, in a large
lecture theatre in Manchester University before a capacity audience,
Dr. Margaret Murray unwrapped the mummies of the 'Two Brothers'.
This was an important development in scientific investigation, for
it involved a multi-disciplinary team. These specialists - in the
fields of anatomy, chemistry and textiles - subsequently carried
out a full-scale investigation of the mummies.
There is comparatively little evidence of mummification from the
Middle Kingdom (c.1900 BC) and the bodies that have been examined
show that there was generally less painstaking preparation than
in the Old Kingdom. The internal organs were removed, but less attention
was given to the preservation of the body. Usually a thin cost of
resin was applied to the skin surface, and this left the drying
out of the body incomplete, so that decomposition soon set in. Although
great care was often lavished on the outward appearance of the mummies,
inside there is usually only a jumble of bones with little or no
evidence of soft tissue.
The mummies of the 'Two Brothers' are particularly interesting because
the difference in their condition is very striking. At the tine
of unwrapping, the mummy of Khnum-Nakht was absolutely dry, whereas
the remains of Nekht-Ankh were quite moist and most of the bandages
were wet.
Khnum-Nakht
The mummy of Khnum-Nakht is a good example of the poor standard
of preservation achieved in the Middle Kingdom. There was very little
remaining skin tissue and most of the remnants resolved into a fine
powder at the unwrapping. Also, no special care had been taken to
preserve his nails.
At
the original investigation Khnum-Nakht was alleged to have a deformity
of the left foot, with skin and tissue thickening indicating a clubfoot
(talipes varus). Later radiological studies have not revealed any
evidence of arthritis or secondary bone change in the foot which
might have been anticipated in a long-standing congenital deformity.
The present study supports the theory that the findings are due
to excessively tight bandaging after death rather than to a clubfoot.
Khnum-Nakht's spine shows evidence of long-standing arthritis with
abnormal curvature (scoliosis) in the thoracic region. Inspection
of the teeth has revealed an extremely rare developmental abnormality
- double gemination (fusion of the teeth); the two central teeth
are abnormally large and the left one has two roots.
Skeleton of Khnum-Nakht shows he probably reached early middle-age and that the skull is negroid. There is almost a complete lack of similarity between this skeleton and his bother's. His teeth have a double gemination (fusion of the teeth), the two central teeth are abnormally large and the left one has two roots.
Nekht-Ankh
The mummy of Nekht-Ankh was better preserved, although the body
had fallen to pieces before unwrapping, the bones were intact and
in position. Even some hair remained, and the embalmers had wrapped
the nails of the fingers and toes with thread to prevent their loss
during the process of mummification. The appearance presented by
this skeleton is suggestive of its being a eunuch, aged about sixty
at time of death. Only Nekht-Ankh had a set of canopic jars and
only two jars in the set had contents. These were identified as
the liver with the gall bladder attached, and lung tissue to which
adhered part of the wall of the heart. Examination revealed that
Nekht-Ankh had suffered from pleurisy, and also from sand pneumoconiosis
which may have been responsible for his death.
The
report into the anatomical finding begins with the observation that
there was a "remarkable racial difference in the features presented
by each. These differences are so pronounced that it is almost impossible
to convince oneself that they belong to the same race, far less
to the same family. The appearance presented by the skeleton of
Nekht-Ankh is suggestive of its being a eunuch. On first inspection
of the bones at this skeleton the writer was much struck with their
slimness, delicate moulding, and the faintness of the muscular impressions;
indeed, their female character proved to be so pronounced that at
first it was difficult to be sure that the skeleton was really that
of a male. The pelvis was reunited and proved to have all the characteristics
of a male".
When the two skulls were re-examined in the 1970s, with the help
numerous radiological photographs it was found that there was almost
a total anatomical difference between the features of the two.
The inscriptions on the coffins states that Khnum-Nakht was a 'Great
Waab-priest' of the local god Khnum and both his father and grandfather
bore the title of local mayor - although nether is named. The inscriptions
referring to Nekht-Ankh are rather different. He is referred as
the son of an unnamed local major but his paternal grandfather is
not mentioned. However, the men were sons of the same woman. Aa-Khnumu,
who was an heiress of landed property?
This slight variation in the inscriptions, taken in conjunction
with the men's marked anatomical differences, may indicate that
their mother had two husbands, and that the father of Khnum-Nakht
possessed Nubian ancestry. During much of Egypt's history, there
was a certain mingling of the peoples of Nubia with those of Egypt
at all levels of society. However, it is accepted nowadays that
a child may well inherit a marked similarity to one of his parents
while having no resemblance at all to the other. This could well
be the case with the two brothers, and one had the usual appearance
of an Egyptian while the other had inherited the characteristic
Nubian features.
Another possibility, and equally likely explanation of this difference
in appearance, is that Nekht-Ankh was adopted into the family at
a very early age, and having been a member of it for so many years,
had become accepted as the son of Aa-Khnumu. Future DNA studies
on samples of tissues or bone taken from these bodies may provide
an answer to the question of their relationship. Professor Rosalie
David (OBE, FRSA, Professor of Biomedical Egyptology at the University
of Manchester) confirmed in Nov-2004 that work is being pursued
on the Two Brothers but no DNA studies have yet been undertaken.
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Facial Reconstruction The reconstruction of the heads of Nekht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht was undertaken to enable the skeletal remains to be related more easily to the brothers as they may have appeared during their lives. The
skull is the matrix upon which the head and face we built.
If the shape of the soft tissue can be rebuilt on a skull,
the result will be a reconstruction which the proportion
and position of the main, features will be accurate. By
utilising measurements of soft issue thickness, as established
by Kollman end Buchly in 1898, the features of these two
mummies were built up in clay on casts of the skull. The objective was to produce pictures using the clay busts as models. A sketch of Khnum-Nakht (left) was made - he would seem to have been a man with strong features all somewhat Negroid in appearance. The other shows Nekht-Ankh (right) as an older man of about 60 years (it is known that he had short grey hair). His features are weaker than his bother with less well-defined features. |
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Left
- map of the excavation area
The
second coffin and body coffin are inferior, and
are for Khnum-Nakht. 
Khnum
is the ram-god creator of life on the potter's
wheel, he was called 'high of plumes, sharp
of horns', had primarily an association with
the Nile cataract. He controls the annual inundation
of the river from the caverns of Hapy, the god
personifying the flood itself. 
In
his supervision over the cataract region he is assisted
by the goddesses Satis and Anket. He was also regarded
in this aspect as lord of the cataract as the 'Ba'
(soul) of the sun-god, hence his name becomes Khnum-Re.
This strong connection with the river lies behind
one of his titles 'lord of the crocodiles', intensified
by the presence of the goddess Neith, mother of
the crocodile-god Sobek, as the most important guest
deity in his temple at Esna.