Mummy of Bashiri

The Mummy of Bashiri is one of the most arresting survivals of Ancient Egyptian funerary art, not because of what has been revealed, but because of what has been deliberately left untouched.

Now displayed in the Musée du Louvre, the mummy dates to the Ptolemaic Period, roughly the late fourth to first centuries B.C., a time when Egyptian religious tradition was carefully preserved even as the country lay under Greek rule. In this era, burial remained a profound theological act, and the body was transformed into a sacred object designed for eternity rather than for human scrutiny.

Discovery

The mummy was discovered in 1919 by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings, long after the necropolis had ceased to be reserved solely for royalty.

From the moment of its discovery, it was clear that this burial was exceptional. The cartonnage covering the face is arranged in an intricate, almost mathematical lattice pattern, unique in the surviving corpus of Egyptian mummification.

The design is so fine and structurally integral that any attempt to remove or unwrap it would cause irreversible damage. For this reason, the mummy quickly earned its enduring nickname, “the Untouchable”.

Who Is He?

For much of its modern history, the individual beneath the wrappings remained anonymous. Only through recent non-invasive study has a name been tentatively identified within the layers of the burial. An inscription appears to record the name Bashiri, though some scholars read it as Pacheri, and the uncertainty remains unresolved.

What is clear, however, is that this was a young adult male, likely in his twenties or early thirties, standing around 1.65 metres tall, and that he belonged to a socially elevated and affluent stratum of Ptolemaic society.

The extraordinary quality of his mummification, particularly the finely engineered cartonnage and dense religious iconography, indicates considerable wealth and access to highly skilled artisans. Such a burial would have been far beyond the reach of ordinary Egyptians and suggests a family deeply invested in orthodox funerary belief, possibly connected to temple life or the educated urban elite.

While no royal insignia or official titles are displayed, the emphasis here is not on public rank but on eternal protection, reflecting a late Egyptian worldview in which devotion and preservation outweighed biography. Bashiri was not a king, but he was clearly someone for whom perfection in death was both expected and afforded.

Analysis

As with so many Ptolemaic burials, the emphasis was not on personal biography, but on divine protection: beaded collars, falcon-headed clasps, and scenes of gods such as Isis, Nephthys, Anubis, and the Four Sons of Horus form a visual liturgy intended to safeguard the deceased through death and into rebirth.

Stylistically, the mummy is a perfect expression of late Egyptian funerary ideology. While the outer world was changing under foreign rule, the afterlife remained deeply conservative. The dense iconography, the precision of the cartonnage, and the near-obsessive care taken with the surface of the body all speak to a belief that preservation itself was sacred. The body was no longer merely wrapped; it was sealed, sanctified, and transformed into a theological object that was never meant to be disturbed again.

In the modern era, Bashiri’s story has entered a new phase. Advanced imaging techniques, including CT scanning, now allow scholars to study mummies internally without lifting a single bandage. These technologies confirm sex, age, and physical condition, and can even detect inscriptions hidden deep within the wrappings.

Ironically, it is modern science that has ensured Bashiri’s continued silence. Where earlier generations of archaeologists might have unwrapped him in the pursuit of knowledge, today he remains intact; protected by both ancient belief and modern ethics.

Today, Bashiri endures as he was intended to: sealed, inviolate, and eternal. Once untouchable by necessity, he is now untouchable by choice. Modern technology has finally caught up with ancient intention, allowing him to remain whole forever; seen, studied, and respected, without ever being disturbed.

Watch our YouTube reel “The Untouchable Mummy” below: