ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of Robert Yohe Dr. Robert Yohe, professor of anthropology at California State University and former State Archaeologist of Idaho, discovered a mass burial site in Egypt that contained the mummified body of a man that they believe was murdered.

What's it like to smell a 1,500-year-old Egyptian mummy? According to Dr. Robert Yohe, professor of anthropology at California State University and former State Archaeologist of Idaho, "It smells like decomposed tissue; it is a distinctive aroma, reminiscent of a latrine. The smell can be described as a cross between myrrh and road kill, and the skin looks like jerky."

Yohe shared experiences from his five seasons in Egypt on March 18 and 19 at the Museum of Idaho, which is currently displaying the exhibit, "World of the Pharaohs." This selection features treasures of the pharaohs such as golden statuettes and an ornate sarcophagus lid.

"It is the best Egyptian exhibit I've seen in a museum of this size," Yohe said of the Museum of Idaho exhibit. "It is the quality of a major metropolis. This can expand the world view of Eastern Idahoans, giving them a chance to connect to a civilization of great impact."

Yohe recently appeared on "Bone Detectives", a show featured on the Discovery Channel that traces clues of ancient skeletons that seem to have been murdered. The episode, "Violence Along the Nile," was dedicated to one of the mummies Yohe uncovered at Tel El Hibeh, a "city of the dead." This site was first occupied 3,000 years ago, known as the Intermediate period, and it lies 3,000 miles south of Cairo. It is a Byzantine/Christian mass burial site, and is estimated to contain more than 200 bodies.

Yohe and his team received a 2006 grant from the American Research Center to conserve the site, which also included two galleries of sheep bones and several stone and wood sarcophagi.

The mummy is nicknamed Arsani, which was found during a recent summer dig. He appeared to have been murdered, having a deep skull fracture in the back of his head. Yohe, the osteologist (bone pathology specialist), and the lithics (the analysis of chipped stone artifacts) expert, said this probably occurred as he was sneaking away, and was hit with a led bullet from a slingshot.

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