Mummy shroud of a woman & a boy

This reconstructed mummy shroud of a woman and a young boy from Saqqara, with the gods Osiris and Anubis dates from the 2nd Century, A.D.

In 2015, conservationists from Moscow, New York and Paris, worked intricately to restore this piece to its former glory, and this below is the result. Notice the removal of the wooden backing frame as seen in the picture above, where once Anubis’s body would be seen.

Moscow Shroud 5747 before preservational reconstruction, with 19th century backing frame which was held by gelatinous glue which the 2015 conservationists painstakingly removed.

The fabric, due to the gelatinous glue used for the 19th century backing, had become very brittle, and the team of conservationists had to work intricately and treated the shroud extremely gently to remove the glue and backing from the ancient piece.

The shroud was then backed again, this time with dense and translucent Indian cotton. Microscopic research and a detailed research of similar images on other shrouds and Faiyum portraits helped to make a reconstruction of the woman’s face and the overall composition of the shroud.

The face had been printed on a special fabric and placed under the remaining fragments of the shroud.