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for reasons that remain unclear, elected to loan him to
a singular Edmonton character by the name of Wilson
Arthur Stewart.
It’s hard to summarize Stewart succinctly, but let’s try: he was
a cross between P.T. Barnum, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and John de
Ruiter. In addition to being president and sole administrator of
the Limestone Cemetery and Genealogical Society, Stewart ran
twice for Edmonton alderman, campaigning for, among other
things, greater reverence for gravestone epitaphs. Other resume
highlights include: anti-fluoridation activism, beekeeping, stamp
and coin collecting, ufology, and publishing vital statistics in his
monthly newsletter, The Guardian Mercury.
Presumably — and with no discernible sense of irony —
Stewart viewed custodianship of Horus as naturally aligned
with the goals of his genealogical society and cemetery obsession,
and perhaps a fundraising opportunity.
Horus was showcased inside a decommissioned Edmonton
Transit bus alongside various graveyard paraphernalia and
taken on tour across Alberta. Along the way, Stewart concocted
a biography for Horus: he was a 4,500-year-old physician (false);
from Egypt’s Third Dynasty (false); and first “discovered” in
Lower Egypt in the 1880s (maybe, but probably also false).
Funds did not materialize. Meanwhile, Edmonton wanted
its loaner bus back and was threatening repossession. Never
one to give up, Stewart petitioned city council for the use of some
vacant city-owned store fronts to display “his” mummy and host
a genealogical conference, promising to repay the rent with
money raised from these schemes. The city declined.
Undaunted, Stewart took a second run at city council in 1970,
this time recruiting Horus as his unwitting campaign manager.
Stewart’s public appearances were bizarre spectacles where
Horus was displayed in an open casket while Stewart spoke at
length about cemetery policies, public transit and “the rights of
the individual in a complex society.” This brazen exploitation of
an Egyptian ancestor might’ve remained a colourful bit of local
political history, were it not for what happened next: shorty after
Stewart’s unsuccessful campaign, he was hospitalized for a rare
blood disorder and died at the age of 53. Whispers of a curse
grew louder.
Archaeologist and U of A professor emeritus Dr.
Nancy Lovell studied Horus for decades. In 2018, she wrote
an unofficial history of Horus’s postmortem adventures in a
newsletter for the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.
According to Lovell’s account, as Stewart’s health was failing,
Horus overwintered in an abandoned shed. It was there that,
in May 1971, Horus was discovered by a couple of teenage
boys who — echoing the macabre curiosity of their Victorian
predecessors — unwisely attempted to unwrap him. Horus
was regrettably damaged in the process, and his head became
detached from his body.
At this point, authorities were notified and Alberta’s Chief
Coroner became involved. Horus was officially pronounced
dead and sent to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, where foul
play was ruled out and x-rays confirmed that he was, in fact,
an Egyptian mummy. Thus, a sadly disheveled Horus — along
with his badly damaged coffin and what remained of his shroud
— was transferred to the U of A Department of Anthropology.
The Woodrow family was soon notified of these developments,
and Horus remained at the university on loan, until George
Woodrow’s death in 1979, whereupon Horus became part of the
university’s permanent collection.
Once this was all settled, Horus’s fortunes improved
dramatically. By 1981, the U of A had recruited a multidisci-
plinary team of scientists, medical specialists, Egyptologists and
conservation experts to oversee Horus’s study, restoration and
eventual exhibition. Radiocarbon dating placed him firmly in
the Ptolemaic period; infrared imaging revealed his lineage and
titles; x-ray and CT scans showed his young age at death (he was
initially misdiagnosed with cancer, later revised). Finally, Horus’s
linen wrappings were tidied and put back in order, and his head
was carefully reattached.
Next, as part of the university’s 75th anniversary in 1982,
a newly-rehabilitated Horus made his debut as the dramatic
centrepiece of an immersive exhibit titled O! Osiris, Live Forever,
hosted on campus at the now-demolished Ring House gallery.
Bernd Hildebrant remembers the exhibit as a success, which
is no surprise. Egyptomania, then and now, is very much alive
and well. Perhaps inevitably, all this renewed attention on Horus
triggered a wave of still-circulating campus lore that includes
breathless reports of disembodied voices and falling ceiling
fixtures, à la Phantom of the Opera. Rumours of a curse only grew
when the state-of-the-art CT scanner used to examine Horus
“died” the following day, and when one of the project’s x-ray tech-
nicians quit after developing unexplained health issues.
All of this was gleefully echoed in the press of the time. One
Edmonton Journal feature story, “The curse of the headless
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