Weaving History, Archeology, and Narrative: A Brief Consideration of Elizabeth Wayland Barbers The Mummies of rmchi
This 5-page undergraduate essay concerns Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s book, The Mummies of Ürümchi. The essay begins with an examination of Barber’s thesis - that textiles and other clues help us see that the mummies have much to say about cultural transmission from west to east. This essay further examines Barber’s use of sources. Barber uses published data about the mummies, archeological evidence, scholarly work on textiles and linguistics, information available about the region in which the mummies were found, maps, black-and-white photos and color photos, as well as drawings. Mostly, she uses textile evidence and her own field work, two interrelated sources she uses with innovation and authority. This essay considers the ways that Barber’s work is credible and plausible, and to this effect compares Barber’s work to two other books, J. Mallory and Victor Mair’s The Tarim Mummies and Heather Pringle's The Mummy Congress, which are on the same topic. This essay concludes that Barber’s text is one of the strongest, managing to be both authoritative, and accessible.
