Mummification was not a simple funerary ritual. It was so much more. The preparation for the afterlife, a new life that had to be reached in the best conditions, both physically and materially. And, in the case at hand, we are not talking about one person, but two.
The mysterious lady, the only known pregnant mummy, died in the 1st century BC and was buried in Thebes (southern Egypt). Her remains were found in the 19th century inside a priest's sarcophagus and recent research suggested that the young woman suffered from nasopharyngeal cancer. Life and death. Death and life.
The girl was in her 20s when she died, according to archaeologists from the Warsaw Mummy Project. She was between 26 and 30 weeks of gestation. "(Seeing an embalmed body) Sometimes we forget that these were people like us, who had loved ones and whose deaths were personal tragedies," say the Polish researchers.
One of his goals in studying ancient Egyptian remains is to "rehumanize mummified people," presenting them as they would have looked during their lifetime. So the archaeologists commissioned two forensic specialists to create facial reconstructions of the pregnant mummy, using 2D and 3D techniques.
“Our bones, and the skull in particular, give a lot of information about an individual's face. Although it cannot be considered an exact portrait, the skull, like many anatomical parts, is unique and shows a set of shapes and proportions that will partially appear in the final face”, says Italian anthropologist Chantal Milani, a member of the project.
The proposals of Hew Morrison and Milani herself can be seen in an exhibition that opened on November 3 at the Silesian Museum in Katowice, as explained by the members of the Warsaw Mummy Project through its page. Facebook. "His story of him touches on the most crucial aspects of life: birth and death," they point out.
“For the first time, her probable appearance has been revealed to the general public and now everyone will be able to look this woman in the eye. For ancient Egyptians, like us, her face was an integral part of identity. By rebuilding this girl's we are bringing her back to life and restoring her identities, ”they conclude.
The mysterious lady, who arrived in Poland in 1826 or 1827, would have belonged to the elite of Thebes and the unusual changes in her nasopharyngeal bones would indicate the possibility of tumor changes, experts from the Medical University of Warsaw explained in July.
“For now we only suspect a malignant tumor. An accurate diagnosis is only possible after a microscopic examination of the tissue, which would give us 100 percent certainty”, they add. Specialists have already set to work to uncover the mystery. Meanwhile, inside the mummy, another mummy is kept, that of the fetus.
