(Manuscript found among the papers of the late Richard H. Johnson, Ph.D., member of the Cabot Museum of Archaeology, Boston, Mass.)
I
is unlikely that anyone in Boston - not regular readers of any other place, forget the strange case of Cabot Museum. The publicity given by newspapers to that infernal mummy, ancient and terrible legends vaguely related to it, the morbid surge of interest, and cults around him who were born in 1932, along with the awful end of the two intruders, occurred the first day of December that year, were circumstances that gave rise to one of these classic mysteries to be perpetuated through the generations as the subject of popular tradition, and go on to become the core of authentic mythological cycles of terror.
Everybody seems to realize also that it has removed something vital, something awful, the information offered to the public about their horrible end. The allusions made in the beginning about the status of one of the two bodies were circumvented and ignored much too quickly, nor was publicized to the extraordinary changes experienced by the mummy. And another thing that surprised the audience was the singular event that will never be reinstated to the cabinet where mummy was exposed. At a time when taxidermy has progressed so far, on the pretext that their state of decay was impossible to display it, it seems particularly weak.
As storage cabinet member of the Museum I am able to reveal all the facts omitted, although while I will not find me alive. There are things in the world and the universe must remain ignored by the majority and keep the idea that all of us, the museum staff, journalists and police, have helped create this atmosphere of horror. However, it does not seem right that a major issue as overwhelming scientific and historical remains entirely in silence, hence the relationship I have written for the benefit of serious researchers. The will place between the various documents to be examined after my death, leaving the destination is given to my executors see fit. Certain threats and extraordinary events that occurred during the past few weeks, I led to think that my life as well as other members of the Museum-is threatened by treachery of some mystic order secret societies, from Asia and Polynesia in particular. Hence the possibility that my executors have to intervene soon. (Note by the trustees: Dr. Johnson died of a sudden in a heart attack, but under somewhat mysterious circumstances on 22 April 1933. Wentworth Moore, taxidermist of the museum and disappeared in the middle of last month. February 18 the same year, Dr. William Minot, who led the autopsy related to the case, was stabbed in the back and died the next day.)
I think the facts had to start back in 1879, long before I resign from my position, following the time the museum bought the mummy that mysterious Orient Shipping Company. His discovery was, in itself, an ominous event, as it came from a vault of unknown origin and of great antiquity, found on an island that emerged suddenly from the bottom of the Pacific.
The May 11, 1878, Captain Charles Weatherbee freighter Eridanus, which had sailed from Wellington, New Zealand, bound for Valparaiso, Chile, clear sighted an island of volcanic origin, contained no in the charts. Emerging from the sea in the form of a truncated cone. Captain Weatherbee went ashore in command of an expedition. The steep slopes on which amounted showed clear signs of prolonged immersion, while at the top found recent signs of destruction, perhaps caused by an earthquake. Among the scattered rocks was a manifestly strong artificial stones. After a brief inspection realized that they were facing one of those stonework found on some Pacific islands that constitute a perpetual archaeological enigma.
Finally, the sailors entered on a solid stone crypt, which had apparently been part of a much larger building, originally built underground, "and there, huddled in a corner, found the mummy frightening. After a moment of perplexity, at the sight of the reliefs that decorated the walls, the men decided to take the mummy to the boat, not without great reluctance and fear to touch. Beside the body, as if he were once among his clothes, had an unknown metal cylinder containing a roll of blue and white membrane from equally unknown nature, written with rare gray characters. In the center of the great stone floor had something like a stone insert, but the issue lacked the means to open.
The Cabot Museum, recently established at the time, learned of the discovery and immediately made arrangements to acquire the mummy and the cylinder. Pickman, also a member of the museum, made a trip to Valparaiso and fitted out a schooner to reconnoitre the crypt where they discovered the specimen. But he was disappointed. Registered in marking the island was seen but the unbroken surface of the sea. Explorers deduced that the same forces that had made seismic appear suddenly, plunged back into the depths water, where he had been sheltered for countless thousands of years. The secret of that trap ever set in stone could not be resolved. Were, however, the mummy and the cylinder. And in early November 1879, put it in the room with the mummies for display. The Cabot Museum of Archaeology, specializing in the remains of ancient civilizations and strangers who do not fall within the domain of art, is a small institution and low popularity, though highly regarded in scientific circles. Located in the Beacon Hill district, the true heart of Boston, in Mt Vernon Street, near Joyce, housed in an old mansion, which had been added a wing on the back, and that was the pride of his austere neighborhood, until the terrible events that recently earned him popularity at all desirable.
The Mummy Room, which occupies the west side of the second floor of original building (designed by Bullfinch and built in 1819) is considered by historians and antrop6logos as the best of its kind in America. It may be characteristic samples of Egyptian mummification techniques, from the earliest examples of recent attempts to Sakkarah Copts of the eighteenth dynasty, there are mummies of other cultures, including specimens found recently in the Aleutian islands, dying Pompeian figures, drawn from the tragic plaster casts were found in the ashes that flooded the city, bodies mummified by natural causes, found mines and other excavations, from everywhere, some caught in postures grotesque, caused by the fear of death ... In short, there is everything you would expect from a collection of this genre. In 1879, of course, the collection was much larger than today. However, even then it was considerable. But that horrible body found in the crypt of an island mammoth ephemeral was always the main attraction and was surrounded by the impenetrable mystery.
The mummy belonged to a man of medium height, unknown race, put in a squatting position, although in a rather strange. The face, half-protected by hands almost claw, the lower jaw was extremely sharp, while the wrinkled features showed a look of terror so dire that few viewers could contemplate with indifference. His eyes were closed, with tightly fastened lids on bulky and bulging eyes. Kept a few strands of hair and beard, the color gray than the rest. The texture of the body that was half leather and half stone, which posed a insoluble problem for experts trying to figure out how it was embalmed. At certain sites were small cracks, holes caused by time and decay. Still stuck to the skin retained some shreds of a special fabric, with traces of unknown drawings.
would be very difficult to say what exactly was so horrible. First, he was to her a vague and undefinable impression of unlimited length, something quite alien to us, as if a peep at the edge of a bottomless abyss of darkness ... But, essentially, was mortally panicked expression that read at the wrinkled face prognathic, half shielded by their hands. Such a symbol of terror infinite cosmic I would say, could not fail to communicate that feeling to the viewer, the mist of mystery and vain conjecture.
Some who used to frequent the Cabot Museum to visit this relic of a former world and forgotten, soon acquired a reputation for wicked. But the institution itself, with its secrecy and discretion, was not involved in the popular sensationalism. In the past century this kind of news had not invaded the field of knowledge to the extent that arrived today. Of course the scholars tried to do everything possible to classify this object frightful but without success. Theories of a lost civilization in the Pacific, which likely remains were perhaps the sculptures of Easter Island and the megalithic monuments of Ponape and Nan-Matal, was quite common among scholars. Raised a number of specialized magazines and frequent controversy surrounding a possible primordial continent whose highest peaks survive in the myriad islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. The range of dates assigned to the hypothetical missing-or continent-culture was both startling and funny. However, there were hints as surprising as important in certain myths of Tahiti and neighboring islands.
Meanwhile, the strange cylinder and roll indecipherable hieroglyphics unknown, carefully kept in the museum's library, received their share of public attention. No one questioned his relationship with Mum, everyone was convinced that, by unraveling the mystery of hieroglyphics, the mystery of that horror wrinkled and shrunken be resolved as well. The cylinder, about four inches in diameter, was an iridescent metal defied chemical analysis, and that apparently was resistant to all reagents. It had a metal cap that fit very tightly, and was adorned with figures of great value decorative and possibly symbolic nature. It was conventional drawings that seemed to obey a geometry system singularly strange, paradoxical and difficult to describe.
was no less mysterious scroll that contained. It was a parchment thin, blue-white, impossible to analyze, wrapped around a thin metal rod of the cylinder. Unrolling the parchment would have a length of just over two feet, and was covered with hieroglyphics large firm in close column extending through the center of the roll. Were drawn or painted with a gray unknown for paleographers, and could not be deciphered despite having been sent copies to all experts in this field. It is true that a few scholars, surprisingly versed in occult literature and magic, found vague similarities between some of the hieroglyphs and symbols in primary described or cited in two or three very ancient esoteric texts as the Book of Eibon, coming as it is believed to the forgotten Hyperborea, Pnakotic Fragments, identified as a pre-human and monstrous and forbidden Necronomicon Abdul Alhazred the mad work. However, none of these similarities was totally clear, because of the poor reputation enjoyed by the occult, they made no effort to provide copies of the hieroglyphs to the initiated in such mystical literature. Of these copies having been provided initially, might have been different the further development of events. The truth is that it would have sufficed for a reader familiar with Nameless Cults von Junzt had taken a look at the hieroglyphics to warn a list of unambiguous meaning. During this period, however, readers of this text was very little blasphemous, since the copies of the work had disappeared almost completely during the period between the prohibition of the original edition (Dusseldorf, 1839) and translation Bridewell (1845), and the new print censored held the Golden Goblin Press in 1909. Virtually no occult, no student of the esoteric sciences of primordial past, had directed his attention to the odd roll, until the outbreak of sensationalist journalism that precipitated the horrible outcome.
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