THE FIRST MUMMY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 47, 24 August 1931, Page 7

THE FIRST MUMMY

TO BE FOUND IN EUROPE WOMAN OF ROMAN EMPIRE CLAD IN KOYAL PUKPLE 'United Press Association—By • Electric Telegraph—Copyrleht.) (Received 241h August, 10 a.m.) VIENNA, 23rd August. For ihe first time in history a mummy has been unearthed in Europe, - a perfectly preserved woman's body dressed in the Roman royal purple, proving her connection with the Imperial House.- The discovery was made in a Russian tomb near Budapest. Lying in the grave beside the mummy were a pot of rouge, a. bowl of powder,: three bottles of scent, numerous jewels, including ivory hairpins, a bronze knitting needle, and a Roman coin, indicating that the lady had lived about 225 A.D. :' O •■'• ■'-•.■■ ■ ■*- ■ . /''

The time mentioned followed the period of .the "Adoptive Emperors," Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, : Antoninus Pius, and Marcus: Aurelius, so aalled because after Nerva'j ■vyho was elected by . the- Senate on. .''•the .'..death of Domitian,'each'.was the adopted of his predecessor. This'perio'd from 96 A.D. to 180 A.D. is described by the historian Gibbon as the.happiest in the. history of. the world. The year 225 A.D. fell' in the reign of Alexander Severn's,'".virtuous but. weak," who attempted to restore the independence, of the Senate and provoked a military reaction for'which, the foundation; had been laid-by.his family, which had heaped privileges upon the army, and impaired :its: efficiency as a fighting force. The elevation of' the brutal peasant Maximinius followed, and this led to. the ; disintegration of I the Koman-Empire,:: for; the various provincial armies put forward their commanders as claimants to the purple.