Of mummies, San Francisco and The Haggin

My coverage of Stockton’s favorite dead guy came full circle today in a story about the new details of Irethorrou, also know as Iret-net-Hor-irw, life that have been discovered since he departed Stockton in August.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a press event in San Francisco last Thursday (yes, the Bay Bridge was closed and it took me forever to get into the city and to get back to the East Bay and finally get home) previewing the new exhibit, which opened on Halloween.

The biggest change in seeing Irethorrou was the scenery. His new digs at the Legion of Honor sit close to the Pacific Ocean.

And the view from the parking lot in front of the museum is pretty amazing.

Haggin Museum Director Tod Ruhstaller once told me that the mummy gets to spend his golden years near the Golden Gate. That’s pretty accurate.

What’s more important, though, is what’s been learned about the mummy. The details include an age estimate, a possible cause of death and a cool genetic fact – he had a wisdom tooth grow in too long because the one above it didn’t.

More impressive is the video fly through put together to see inside of his body, right down to fissures in his skull.

The exhibit comes together with the work of a lot of hands, including representatives from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium in Harrisburg, PA.  It turnaround from August to now was fast. And the results on display are preliminary.

There’s a lot more to be learned about the mummy.

The important thing to note is that the scholarship advancement started here at The Haggin. Little was known about Irethorrou when he arrived in Stockton 65 years ago. The tags that came with him from the de Young Museum, now part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, had bare bones and inaccurate information.

He was on display for years before Record columnist Michael Fitzgerald convinced publisher Roger Coover to finance the underwriting costs to pay for an Eqyptologist to come out. It was then the community learned his name and all about who he was. The Haggin deserves a lot of credit for its care taking of the mummy and, more importantly, for giving him a name.

He was never just an artifact. He was part of the community.

His departure means we learn more about him at the cost of not having the mummy around.

And that’s OK. It’s more than OK, actually. It’s pretty awesome. Yes, it’s a loss to The Haggin. But in my reporting and from personal knowledge I know The Haggin is much more than the mummy. It always has been. It will continue to be.

The exhibit at Legion of Honor runs through next August. That’s enough time for many locals to visit Irethorrou and find out even more about who he was. To revisit the mummy’s grand story and final weeks in Stockton, check out our coverage at Recordnet.com/mummy.