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BOSTON — A 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy is coming out of its coffin to undergo cleaning and restoration procedures at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The mummy known as Padihershef has been on display at the third oldest general hospital in the United States since it received him as a gift from the city of Boston in 1823 as a medical oddity.

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On Friday, a conservator trained in restoring ancient artifacts will remove him from his coffin and use cotton swabs to wipe away salt deposits from his face. The salt has been slowly seeping out of his tissue, a result of the mummification process. Experts are also expected to do minor repair and stabilization work on his coffin.

The mummy and his coffin will then be moved to a special horizontal case in which they will lie next to each other in the Ether Dome, a surgical amphitheatre where William T. G. Morton demonstrated the first public surgery using anesthetic on Oct. 16, 1846.