Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park Coffin Opening

HAMILTON, OHIO - Researchers at Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park drew a blank when they opened an ancient Egyptian mummy coffin Friday, April 30.

Steven Tuck, a classics professor at Miami University, had hoped to find hieroglyphics on the inside of the coffin of Ankh-Takelot, a priest and blood relative of an Egyptian pharaoh.

However, after he and some of his students gingerly opened the 3,000-year-old case at 7 p.m., all they found inside were stains, apparently from the resin of the departed mummy.

"We don't have the extra decoctions, which is a huge disappointment," he said.

Tuck noted that the hieroglyphics on the outside were smeared. "As far as I can tell, this entire thing was a rush job," he said, which may explain why no hieroglyphics were ever painted on the inside.

Still, if Pyramid Hill founder Harry Wilks was let down, he didn't show it, laughing and joking along with several dozen Pyramid Hill supporters who watched the opening.

"They were disappointed, not to find the writings, but most of these coffins don't have it, only some of them do, so we knew there was a great possibility there was no writing inside. But the writing on the back is remarkable and has not been seen since we've had it on display," Wilks said.

The back of the coffin had several hieroglyphics, plus renderings of the gods Horus and Toth, who were flanking the "pillar of eternity," Tuck said.

Perhaps an early clue to what wasn't inside was the fact that "you can see right through it," said Miami student Ryan Cook of Mansfield, referring to a gap in the coffin lid when it's closed.

"There was nothing to protect him on the inside. That could explain why grave robbers were able to get to him," Tuck said.