Is it true that one day the Egyptian authorities issued a passport of the mummy?

On the Internet, a story is popular about how in the 1970s the mummy of Ramses II had to be taken to France and for this a real passport was issued to the pharaoh 3,000 years ago. We checked the reliability of such publications.

The story of the unusual decision of the Egyptian authorities share with their audience numerous publics on VKontakte. Typically, the text of publications looks something like this: “The current Egyptian passport was issued the legendary pharaoh Ramses II so that its 3000-year-old mummy could be delivered to Paris for the necessary restoration.” Often such posts are accompanied by a photograph of the document. The passport for the mummy was told, in particular, "5 interesting facts" (4.4 million subscribers), Hypecamp (1.4 million), "5 short facts" (2.5 million), HistoryPorn (1.4 million) “Do you know?! | Interesting facts " (1.2 million) and "/Concrete mixer" (1 million). Users of other social networks are also divided by history: Facebook*, Twitter, Livejournal, "Yandex.Zen" and others.

The story of the mummy received a passport has already attracted the attention of our colleagues from different projects. The analysis of similar posts in social networks published a factor from the American USA Today, Singapore unit AFP agencies and the Kyrgyz project Factcheck.kg. Surprisingly, our colleagues following the results of their investigations came to fundamentally different conclusions.

Let's start with the part of the audit in which foreign facts converge. Publications in social networks are often accompanied by the same picture of the ID card of Ramses II. The document is compiled in English, contains a photo of the mummy, the owner’s data and information about the validity of the card. Sometimes Internet users attach similar photos to their posts: the data is presented on them either in another language or in a much smaller volume.

The photo of the document that has become the most common has in fact has nothing to do with the events of the 1970s. Under the barcode in the lower left corner of the picture, you can see the inscription Heritagedaily.com - this is the name resource On archeology and anthropology. The image is posted in the article, published March 25, 2020 and is accompanied by the signature: “The image is presented for informational purposes. This passport is not posted into open access. ” In a conversation with AFP, Heritagedaily owner Marcus Milligan reportedWhat did this illustration back in 2018, and in 2020 published again. The latter is confirmed and search According to VKontakte’s records: publications on the passport of the pharaoh were accompanied by a photograph of the document in 2018, although about an unusual historical episode They told At least since 2013.

Although our colleagues from different factskeeping projects converge in assessments regarding the history of the image, they evaluate the fact of its issuance differently. So, at the end of 2019, Factcheck.kg and USA Today assured their readers at the beginning of 2021: the document was really issued, just his image was either not preserved or inaccessible. AFP in the fall of 2020 stated the opposite: there is no evidence that the Egyptian mummy issued a passport.

We will analyze the arguments Factcheck.kg and USA Today. The authors of both analysis refer to the same publication In National Geographic. It is called “photographs of mummies and other strange facts about passports” and was published in October 2018. The author of the article Karen Gardiner writes about the story with the participation of the Ramses II mummy as follows: “There are no well-known entries about the existence of something similar to the passport in ancient Egypt. But in 1974, when the mummy of Ramses II (died in 1213 BC) had to be sent to Paris for restoration, she was given an acting Egyptian passport with a photograph of the face of the pharaoh. His occupation was indicated as "king (deceased)."

Gardiner, in turn, Reference for an article by the resource of History.com. A note entitled “Five Great Discoveries of the Mummy” was placed on the site in the spring of 2013 and updated a month and a half before the publication at National Geographic. The unnamed author of the article claims without references to third -party sources: “In 1974, archaeologists noticed that the state of the mummy was worsening and sent to Paris, where the mummy was“ treated ”from a fungal infection. Before the trip, Ramses II was given an Egyptian passport in which his profession was indicated as "king (deceased)."

The lack of references to any authoritative sources is not the only problem of this publication. The History.com website belongs to the History television channel, previously known as History Channel. Over the years, materials that have been issued by the resources associated with the channel have been criticized by professional historians. In particular, History Fleaned For films about ancient aliens who provoked the extinction of dinosaurs. Forbes several years ago He wrotethat the channel in pursuit of ratings often neglected the historical reliability of content for the sake of entertainment and attracting a wider audience.

It should be noted that the note on the History.com website is mistakenly considered the first material that mentioned a passport specially released for the pharaoh. For example, at the beginning of 2010 about this mentioned In the announcement of a one -day course in archeology, which was held by the University of Manchester. Back in the 2000s, an unusual history was also told on thematic resources dedicated to archeology And Ancient Egypt.

The earliest mention of the story of the passport for the mummy that we managed to detect dates from the beginning of the 2000s. In the scientific article of 2005, published In Anthropology and Humanism, explorer Eline Silverman from Illinois University leads it in footnotes with reference to Forbes Publication of August 13, 2002. At the same time, in preserved archival copies The notes about the passport for the mummy of Ramses II are not said, but now the article is at all Inaccessible On the website of the publication.

Unlike colleagues from Kyrgyzstan, USA Today also refers to article In The New York Times, dedicated to the solemn meeting of the mummy in Paris in the fall of 1976. It does not say anything about issuing a passport for transporting the remnants of Ramses II from Egypt to France. Moreover, the author of the article reports that this process began to be discussed only in 1975, when Maurice Bekai explored the mummy and discovered problems with its safety, although many popular sources claim that the passport was issued back in 1974.

AFP offers to get acquainted with another evidence of those events - the report of the French television channel Antenne 2. Escape record of September 26, 1976 Available On YouTube. Neither in the words of the leading news, nor in the comments of the correspondent, nothing is said about the passport issued by the mummy.

Elizabeth David from the Department of Egyptian Antiquities Louvre reported AFP that there is no reason to believe that the Egyptian authorities really issued the mummies an identification document. According to the expert, confusion arose due to the report, published In 1985, the French National Museum of Natural History. In this report, archaeologist Christian Dorosh-Noblekur said that for the transport of mummy it is necessary to get a passport from Egypt, and this word was taken into quotes. “Of course, the French government did not ask the late pharaoh to present a passport literally. The use of this word speaks only of how incredibly the organization of the process was, ”David believes.

In French, the word Passeport really There is The meaning "something that allows you to move from one place to another, to be accepted in a close circle." One of the dictionaries gives an example from the work of Georges Sand: “With a passport such as your voice and your violin, you could not help but be well accepted by my master” (“Avec Un Passeport Comme Votre Votre Violon, Vous ne Pouviez Mantre Bien Aceneillas Par Mon Maître ").

Mathieu Tuzel-Shhima, professor of law from the University of Toulouse-1-Capitol, in a conversation with AFP He emphasized: "In French legislation, there are no requirements for a passport for inanimate people." The expert also explained that the mummy in local law is considered in a sense as an object of antiques-special documents are really required for its transportation, but they have nothing to call them a passport, they have nothing to do with the usual human passport.

Thus, there is no strict evidence that in the mid-1970s, the Egyptian authorities issued a real passport in the name of the pharaoh to transport the mummy of Ramses II to France. This is not confirmed by either publications in the media of that time, nor experts interviewed by our colleagues from AFP.

*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, an extremist organization; Its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. AFP Fact Check. Photo Shows Passport for the Mummy of Ramesses II?
2. Is it true that in the 19th century, steam locomotives were drowned with Egyptian mummies?
3. Is it true that the Egyptian pyramids in Giza built slaves?