Vermont Curator Cremated Egyptian Mummy

In 1886, a man named Henry Sheldon bought a poorly preserved mummy said to be Amun-Her-Khepesh-Ef, the two-year-old son of Egyptian king Senusret III, for his Vermont museum. The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History stored it in its attic for decades. In 1945, a curator named George Mead rejected a suggestion to throw it out, had it cremated in his neighbor's furnace to prevent student pranksters from digging it up, and buried the ashes in his family plot at Middlebury Cemetery. The headstone gives a death date of 1883 BC, the earliest recorded on an American tombstone, although no one ever confirmed the mummy's identity.

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