here are in Essence
four Tjeby's. First and most significantly there was the actual Tjeby, the Count
and Sealbearer of the King of Lower Egypt during the XIth Dynasty of First Intermediate
Period Egypt, who is lost in the Primordial mists of time. Then there is the
Tjeby who lies Static, bound up in his Khat in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
a human body which has become an eternal symbol of an era of artistic endeavor
in the field of thanatology. Thirdly, there is the roleplaying non-player character
Tjeby, who is endlessly Questing to restore Maat, the cosmic order and balance.
And finally, there is the Dynamic of tjeby@erols.com, the aimless efforts of
one modern individual to change the world around him through the newfound power
of the internet.
Tjeby the Historical, Count and Sealbearer of the King of Lower Egypt
jeby lived
during the tumultuous XIth Dynasty of the First Intermediate Period of ancient
Egypt. The early XI Dynasty was a time in which the city of Thebes was of
great importance. Early rulers included Mentuhotep I, Intef I, Intef II, and
Intef III, and their reigns are usually considered to be part of the First
Intermediate Period. Principal kings of the late XI Dynasty were Nebhepetra
Mentuhotep, Sankhkara Mentuhotep, and Nebtawyra Mentuhotep. Most scholars
consider their reigns to fall under the Middle Kingdom period.
Tjeby the Man in the Coffin, As displayed in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
n 1953 Tjeby
was purchased inside of an ancient Egyptian coffin. He was purchased by the
Virginia Museum in Richmond, Virginia from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Tjeby had been excavated by a Boston Museum team along with aid from a team
of archaeologists from Harvard University. As far as I can tell he was purchased
using monies from the Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund 53.30.1. and
is described in the museum as the "coffin of Tjeby, 2195-2040 BC, XI Dynasty,
polychromed wood with linen wrapped mummy". There is, however, obvious disagreement
as to the actual date of his lifetime. The museum handouts proclaim in one
place exactly as the display does, but in another they claim Tjeby to be from
the period of 2258-2052 BC though listed as the same dynasty and period.
Tjeby is in very poor condition as the First Intermediate Period was an era of turmoil and burial practices were far less lavish and mummification techniques less thorough than other periods. X-rays and CAT-scans of Tjeby, taken in 1985 at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in Richmond, reveal that the process used on Tjeby was not of high quality and left little inside the wrappings other than disjointed bones and teeth. It was also determined that Tjeby's body bore no clear marks of trauma or disease, yet he died between ages of 25 and 40. It is clear that Tjeby does indeed date from the eleventh dynasty but unclear from what years exactly.
Tjeby's coffin bears his name and the titles "Count and Sealbearer of the King of Lower Egypt". Also, appearing in the same band of hieroglyphs, there are prayers meant to protect him in the afterlife. Eyes on the side of the coffin reputedly allowed the Count to see the rising sun.
Previously Tjeby shared the Egyptian area of the Virginia Museum with a display that overshadowed his presence, that of another mummy who was displayed visibly in a chamber which could be viewed from above as a fantastic recreation of a tomb. The Director of the museum in 1987 decided to concur with the American Association of Museums and remove the mummy from open display. The other mummy was a XXI Dynasty specimen dating from 1090-945 BC and had been borrowed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1957. It was returned to that collection.
I must say that I disagree with the approach of the modern museum Directors. It has become a political idea that we must not disgrace the Egyptian dead by displaying them. I feel we must judge what is right for the remains of others by their own culture. From what we know of ancient Egyptians, what they feared most was to be forgotten, to cease to exist. So long as the name of an ancient Egyptian was spoken, he could continue. By hiding away the ancients and consigning great numbers of them to eventual demolition at the hands of the current regime in Egypt due to inadequate facilities, we are defying their wishes. We have already undone thousands of years of preservation by changing the very environment in which they are buried by building dams which threaten to submerge artifacts and tombs alike, and by pollution so severe that it has caused as much damage during my own lifetime as perhaps for the last thousand years. I say that given what we have done to their burial grounds, it has become our duty to preserve their bodies, and to remind all generations to come of their names and faces. It may be that providing the public with as much information as possible will be the only way to raise awareness of the need to preserve the Egyptian antiquities to the point necessary to ensure their continued existence physically and spiritually.
In the case of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Dr. Mayo offered me the following information on their decision to remove the other mummy from display and return it to New York: "The Egyptian Gallery installation (opened in 1960) did not ever include a 'vacuum sealed' case for the mummies. [I had erroneously stated previously that the other mummy had been displayed in a vacuum sealed case.] The motivating factors in deciding to change the 1960 mode of display of our mummy and its coffin were four. (1) The Museum needed to make the entire gallery available to handicapped visitors (the 1960 installation was on two levels, approached by steps and a steep ramp). (2) The Museum needed to maximize gallery space for displaying as much of its Egyptian art as possible, especially the important sculpture. (3) The Egyptian gallery needed to accomodate large groups of visitors (especially school groups). (4) As the VMFA is a museum of fine arts, it is more important to display the coffin of Tjeby so that its paintings can be seen clearly than to show the (poorly preserved) body of Tjeby. Moreover, the 1960 gallery displayed the coffin with its lid ajar as if tomb robbers had been caught in the act--when, in reality, the coffin was brought to light by professional archaeologists in an officially approved excavation."
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts can be found at 2800 Grove Avenue, Richmond, Virginia 23221. Their information telephone number is 804/367-0664. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 11am to 5pm, with hours extended until 8pm on Thursdays. If you want to see Tjeby, or receive information on him, be persistent. You will discover that very few museum employees seem to know that there is a mummy still at rest within their walls. Indeed one security guard was quite startled and appeared very disturbed and somewhat dismayed to learn that the Egyptian room actually contained a dead body. Information handouts are available normally at the front Information Desk, however, and these are a really good source on the Tjeby exhibit. The internet address for the Virginia Museum is listed as follows: http://www.state.va.us/vmfa/. The current Curator of Ancient Art is Dr. Margaret Ellen Mayo, and you can leave email for her at webmaster@vmfa.state.va.us for requests for further information on Tjeby.
Tjeby the Reborn, a storyteller's character
jeby
the Reborn is meant to be a nonplayer character for Mummy Second Edition.
It is hoped that he will serve as a potentially useful figure in mysterious
corners of others' games and as a recurring excuse for me to continue my studies
of Egyptology.
Tjeby@erols.com, A Modern Dreamer building his own Paradigm
took the name
"tjeby" for my email address quite out of frustration, actually. I had asked
for fifteen different email addresses and been told, one after the other,
that each of them had been taken already. Finally, in desparation, just pulling
ideas out of my hat, I struck upon the name of the mummy in the Virginia Museum.
I possess some interest in Egyptology, but never did I dream that I would
take the name of an ancient governor of that land. Wherever he now resides,
I am sure that Tjeby is pleased to be remembered, for such was the final desire
of his people.
So, who am I? I am a product of youth rebelling against an attempted hippie upbringing, dreaming of past glories, but sold to the urban professionals. I am a booklover, and fan of science fiction and fantasy. I am a part time practitioner of aikido. I am a poet trying to be a writer. I am somewhat politically correct, and hate the fact that it has become a virtual four letter word in our society. But most of all I am a fanatic about Roleplaying games, starting with Dungeons and Dragons over sixteen years ago, and eventually exploring the wonderful worlds of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and White Wolf's World of Darkness.
Contained within this web page are my visions of these realms, and I can only hope that a few of them will be of use or interest to the gentle reader. It is my intent to present these ideas in the format of a Journal printed by an organization of scientific-minded mystics. It is with this in mind that one of the characteristics of the character Tjeby is that as a mummy he has masqueraded as an egyptologist and befriended certain members of the Electrodyne Engineers. Occasionally, he is granted the chance to write about some of his more interesting experiences amongst those of which he is willing to talk.
Note: I no longer use that address due to changing ISPs and moving around a bit and so forth.
The Fifth Tjeby!
s a final note,
I have received information about another mummy called Tjeby, whom I found
to lie in the Museum of Victoria in Australia. To date I have been speaking
to David Jay via email from the museum and he has sent me literature about
their Tjeby, but I continue to hope that they will post more extensive information
on him on their site as well. The address there is http://www.mov.vic.gov.au/index.html
and the webmaster's email address is webmaster@www.mov.vic.gov.au.
The snail mail address for the museum is Museum of Victoria, PO Box 666E,
Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. If you would not mind terribly, please
join my effort to get more information posted where everyone can find it.
I promise I will post as much as I can from the literature I have received.
I am particularly interested in learning similarities between the two mummies,
but thus far I have been able to learn little more from the Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts.
Thanks are due to David Jay from the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
References to products created by White Wolf or other
companies are not challenges to their copyrights
