Cork artist Dorothy Cross returns UCC mummy back home to Egypt

The mummified remains had spent years in UCC and form part of a donation from the Cork college to the Egyptian State

Dorothy Cross with the mummy, formerly located at UCC, Cork, that was returned to Egypt in a gold-gilded crate.

It’s been a long and difficult journey, but Cork artist Dorothy Cross has finally succeeded in returning a mummy to Egypt that she had first heard about many years ago through family working in UCC.

The mummy, believed to be that of a middle-aged adult male - possibly a priest from Thebes - was donated to UCC by clergy from the African Missions in 1928. At one point, it was in the care of the college's Department of Pathology, where Cross’s uncle was a professor, and was then put into storage.