The so-called “screaming mummy” known for his distorted facial expressions likely died of excruciating pain, a team of researchers said. The discovery adds credence to theories that have been speculated since the mummies were first discovered nearly a century ago.
In 1935, a Metropolitan Museum of Art expedition discovered the mummy in a wooden coffin beneath the tomb of Senmut at the ancient Theban site of Deir el-Bahari. The mummified woman wears a black wig and gold and silver rings, but the most intriguing thing is her expression, with her mouth open and her chin slightly tilted.
In 2020, an analysis of the 3,000-year-old mummy by Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem found that the ancient Egyptian woman died of a heart attack; crucially, the team concluded that the embalming process caused her pain Immortal, hence the nickname “Screaming Mummy”. In the context of the research, this sample is called “Unknown Female A.”
Now, a paper is published in Medical Frontier The discovery was confirmed and refuted doubts about whether the woman actually died in such dramatic circumstances.
“In ancient Egypt, embalmers would prepare the bodies of the deceased so that they would look beautiful after death,” Salim, a radiologist at Cairo University and lead author of the study, explained in an email to Gizmodo. “That’s why they were keen on sealing the mouth of the deceased by tying their chin to their head to prevent the normal jaw drop after death.”
“We found that the mummified body was in very good preservation condition, with traces of expensive embalming materials on the surface,” Salim added. “This rules out carelessness during the mummification process and that the embalmers simply neglected to close her mouth.“.
Instead, Salim’s team believes the woman may have suffered cadaveric spasm, a rare form of localized muscle stiffness in the body, before her death. Muscles can contract for up to 36 hours; a recent research team suggested that the person may have been embalmed before the muscles had a chance to relax, thus preserving her face in death. The team noted that this condition may have prevented the embalmer from closing her mouth as normally would have been possible.
According to a 2020 Gizmodo report, researchers believe the woman may have died from a heart attack. A 2013 study lancet found that 34% of mummies from that time showed evidence of cardiovascular disease. By comparison, 1 in 5 deaths may be attributable to some form of heart disease by 2022, according to the CDC.
“This study is a useful contribution to the scientific study of resin and other mummy materials, and the authors’ approach is novel and detailed,” said Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at St. Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute and lead author of Global HORUS. (Randall Thompson) In an email to Gizmodo, a study took a comprehensive look at heart disease in ancient cultures.
“As for the open-mouth explanation, the authors discuss it well, but they don’t have any direct evidence in this particular mummy to support their view or refute other potential possibilities,” said Thompson, who was not involved in the new study. Research. “However, I believe they are right. Their explanation makes sense.
That said, Thompson told Gizmodo back in 2020, “Museum curators and anthropologists sometimes make up entire stories about mummies based on a small set of objective data, and there’s no one around to contradict them.”
Salim’s team backed up her earlier findings, stressing that the embalmers performed reasonable care on the deceased and completed the work at a reasonable cost. Analysis of the woman’s skin revealed that her skin had been treated with vital frankincense and juniper berries, her natural hair had been treated with henna and juniper berries, and even her wig had been treated with quartz and crystals deal with. In other words, her mouth doesn’t look open because the embalmers were lazy.
However, not everyone agrees. “During death, the body’s muscles relax, often resulting in a passive opening of the mouth,” Gregory Thomas, a cardiologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not associated with the recent work, said in an email to Gizmodo. , is also the co-leader of the HORUS project. “To best represent the condition of the deceased after death, modern and possibly ancient embalmers would physically close the mouth if it was open when receiving the deceased. Therefore, the most likely cause of CIT8’s scream is [screaming] The problem with the mummy was that her mouth was not closed during the embalming process.
“Cadaveric spasm is a process that is still not well understood because it is rare and only occurs in forensic settings. So more forensic research may be needed,” Salim added. “Additionally, more studies of mummies with such screaming facial expressions may shed more light on this condition.”
