MUMMY'S THE WORD IN MAINE TOWN.

Byline: Doreen Iudica Vigue The Boston Globe

When Sue Ledoux bent down to examine an old jug in the entryway of The Nonesuch House, she found herself nose to toes with the ultimate antique.

Behind the jug, in a wood and glass case secured by a padlock, was a 3,096-year-old Egyptian mummy. The mummy is missing her shroud, a couple of toes and a foot, but her body is remarkably well-preserved.

Priced at $185,000 (a summer markdown from $195,000), the mummy was beyond Ledoux's price range and not what she had in mind for a vacation souvenir anyway.

``I was thinking more of a T-shirt or something. But this would certainly make an interesting conversation piece,'' said Ledoux. ``I, ah, I have, ah, never seen a mummy in a store - I mean, out of a museum before,'' the 43-year-old from Monkton, Vt., said as she stood up and focused on the body before her.

Ever since Terry Lewis, who owns Nonesuch House, bought the mummy for an undisclosed amount at a New Hampshire museum auction in 1992 and brought it to his antiques/imports/bric-a-brac shop on Middle Street, it has dusted up conversation and controversy in this town of 3,000.

The unnamed mummy is not in a museum or private collection, and that rankles historians, archeologists and museum curators who worry the mummy will crumble.

``I have to decry any kind of sale of archeological materials torn out of their context and not being treated with the utmost respect,'' said Stephen L.

Whittington, an anthropologist who directs the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine at Orono. ``There are people who would want to own something like this for the shock value, but it should be preserved and studied.''

Even shoppers wonder why the mummy is not in a museum and how an ancient relic can be bought retail. A local newspaper has even accused the 50-year-old Lewis of exploiting women by putting the mummy on display.

``I can tell when people find her. I hear them yelling, `Oh, My God!' or `That is gross!' or `Matilda, you must come and see this! It's a mummy, for heaven's sake!' '' Lewis said.

Lewis claims that no museum wanted the mummy when the former Morse Museum in Warren, N.H., put its artifacts up for auction. Both he and curators agree that money for new museum objects is scarce, but that mummies aren't. Most museums already have some sort of mummified creature - human or animal - and do not need or want another.

The mummy first came to New England with Ira Morse, a wealthy shoe manufacturer who spent time in Egypt during the 1920s, when King Tutankhamen's tomb was being excavated. Morse brought home two discarded mummies, and added them to his collection of stuffed lions and other items from his world travels.

When Phillip Morse, his son, died in 1991, the family decided to sell the items. Today, Nonesuch is home to one of the mummies; it's unclear what happened to the other.

Lewis, who has collected antiques and oddities since his childhood in nearby Boothbay Harbor, concedes he doesn't know whether it's legal for him to sell the mummy - or even own it. The state Attorney General's Office doesn't know, either.

``If we were talking about the usual circumstances, it would not be lawful,'' said Charles Leadbetter, an assistant attorney general in the criminal division. ``But I'd have to check into this. We don't have mummies here. They aren't indigenous to Maine.''

Maybe so. But during the Civil War, Egyptian mummies were brought by ship to New England mills, where their fine linen wrappings were made into paper and their bodies burned for fuel.

``It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few mummies saved from those times in some Maine attics right now,'' Whittington said. ``I know some people in Bangor who have a mummy's head. They take it out on Halloween. It's sort of a family heirloom. They're very proud of it.''

For his part, Lewis says he has wanted a mummy all his life. But he is ready to part with her for the right price. After all, he already has an 8-foot-high replica of the Statue of Liberty.

``If someone offered me $30,000 to $40,000 for her, I'd be hard-pressed to say no,'' said Lewis, a never-married merchant mariner who has traveled the world. ``I have no right to this mummy, really.

``That's why I haven't named her,'' he added. ``She's not mine; she belongs to the ages.''

Despite the publicity the mummy has brought the shop, he has had no serious offers.

He likes to say he expects ``a call from Michael Jackson's people any minute now.'' But except for the occasional millionaire who strolls in and wants the mummy for a coffee table and a song, it appears she may be in her final resting spot.

And that might be fine with her.

According to Peter Lacovara, assistant curator in the Department of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the dead were mummified so that loved ones could visit them, see their profiles and think of them as still alive.