Lying in a wooden coffin, a black wig on her head, two scarab rings in silver and gold on her fingers, the mouth open in a grimace similar to a scream. It was found in 1935 during an expedition to Deir Elbahari near Luxor, ancient Thebes, an Egyptian woman from about 3,500 years ago who shocked archaeologists with that disturbing expression drawn on her face. They nicknamed her ‘Screaming Mummy‘ and her story remained shrouded in mystery that scientific research has repeatedly tried to unravel. Today, 89 years after being brought to light, the ‘Screaming Woman’ and her secret are once again at the center of a study published in ‘Frontiers in Medicine’.
The authors’ conclusion is chilling: “The mummy’s screaming facial expression could be read as a cadaveric spasm” and this “implies that the woman is died screaming in agony or pain“, says Sahar Saleem, professor of radiology at Cairo University’s Kasr Al Ainy Hospital, who, together with her colleague Samia El-Merghani, ‘virtually dissected’ the mummy using all the technologies available to the modern radiologist. From CT (computerized tomography) to scanning electron microscopy (SEM), to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The aim of the tests: to estimate the woman’s age, identify any illnesses, understand the procedures used to embalm her and evaluate the state of conservation of the relic that has reached us.
The Metropolitan Museum of New York led the distant excavation operations. The tomb was that of Senmut, the supervising architect of the royal works, presumably the lover of Queen Hatschepsut who lived between 1479 and 1458 BC. Under his burial, archaeologists discovered a separate burial chamber intended for Senmut’s mother and other unidentified relatives. It is here that they found the coffin of the ‘Screaming Woman’, whose mummy was preserved until 1998 at the Kasr Al Ainy School of Medicine in Cairo, which in the 1920s and 1930s studied many royal mummies including Pharaoh Tutankhamun. At the request of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, the ‘Screaming Mummy’ was then transferred to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, while her coffin and jewelry are on display at the Metropolitan in NYC. Saleem’s team was able to obtain several pieces of information: the woman was approximately 1.54 metres tall, he suffered from arthritis, he had undergone dental surgery and died at around 48 years old. And apparently she did not pass away peacefully, considering that “cadaveric spasm – experts describe – is a rare form of muscle stiffening typically associated with violent deaths in extreme physical conditions with intense emotions”. In this case, a great pain that the spasm has fixed forever.
To the archaeologists who discovered it, the ‘Screaming Mummy’ still appeared to be in good condition. Without bandages, she was lying supine with her legs stretched out and her hands clasped over her groin. The body showed no incisions, and in fact the brain, diaphragm, heart, lungs, liver, spleen and kidneys had not been removed during embalming, despite the classic mummification techniques of that period requiring the removal of all organs except the heart. On the other hand, the woman was missing several teeth, probably extracted by one of the first dentists in history. “Dentistry was born in ancient Egypt with Hesy Re, the first dentist known to the world,” Saleem notes. That the missing teeth had been lost before death was indicated by evidence of bone resorption, a process that occurs when a tooth comes out and the socket heals. Other teeth on the mummy were broken or showed signs of attrition.
The height of the ‘Screaming Woman’ was estimated using 2D and 3D CT images, while her age at death was inferred from the morphology of the joint between the pelvic bones, which softens with age. She suffered from a mild form of arthritis of the spine, on which ‘bone spurs’ (osteophytes) appeared. Ftir analyses conducted on her skin suggested that the woman had received a‘luxury’ embalming, with juniper and incense perhaps imported from the eastern Mediterranean and eastern or southern Africa. Expensive materials, Saleem notes, so much so that they were “also found in Tutankhamun’s tomb”. These observations confirm “the trade in embalming substances in ancient Egypt. The expedition led by Queen Hatshepsut brought the incense from Punt, probably in present-day Somalia”, says the professor. The woman’s natural hair had also been treated with precious materials such as henna and juniper. While for the long wigmade with date palm fibers, quartz crystals, magnetite and albite were used perhaps to stiffen the locks and give them the black color. The favorite of the ancient Egyptians because it was a symbol of youth.
Embalming with imported and expensive substances and the well-preserved appearance of the mummy correct an old misunderstanding. It was previously thought that the failure to remove the internal organs was due to poor mummification, and that careless embalmers may have forgotten to close the woman’s mouth, allowing rigor mortis to ‘freeze’ her with an expression similar to that of someone screaming. This is not the case, the authors of the new study assure. No obvious cause of death was found on the body, however. The mystery, in short, remains.
#Secret #Screaming #Mummy #Discovered #Died #Screaming #Pain
