This was a period of unlicensed looting of the Egyptian tombs. A good many sarcophagi had found their way to America and had aroused widespread curiosity. Almost no one knew that the hieroglyphs could be diciphered.* With the whole of Kirtland’s male population interested in the study of ancient languages, it was inevitable that Chandler’s mummies should fall into the hands of the church. Joseph told Josiah Quincy in 1844 that his mother purchased them “with her own money at a cost of six thousand dollars,” although he wrote in his journal that they had been bought by “some of the Saints” in
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