Egyptian mummy could shake archaeologists’ theories of funeral rituals
The mummified remains of an Egyptian dignitary, possibly dating from more than 4,000 years ago, could rewrite the history of burial practices, an archaeologist says.
Examination of a mummy that was excavated in 2019 suggested that Egyptians belonging to the Old Kingdom between 2700BC and 2200BC were capable of sophisticated burials.
This discovery puts such funeral practices at 1,000 years earlier than was widely acknowledged by academics.
Dr Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and one of the primary researchers in the recent study, told The National that circumstantial evidence suggested the mummy dated from the time of the Old Kingdom.
Evidence to indicate the mummy’s great age included hieroglyphs on the wall of the tomb.
These showed that it was the resting place of the body of Khuwy, a high-ranking official of the Fifth dynasty.
He lived sometime within a 150-year period from the early 25th century BC until the mid24th century BC.
Pottery and canopic jars, containers used during mummification to store parts of the body, also appeared to have been made in the Old Kingdom.
“If this is indeed the mummy of Khuwy, this will truly be a unique discovery that dramatically shifts our understanding of the history of the Old Kingdom,” Dr Ikram said.
The sarcophagus where the mummy was found was housed in an austere burial chamber separated from the main tomb by a wall.
The tomb complex, Dr Ikram said, features a layout that is characteristic of the architecture of royal pyramids built during the Fifth dynasty.
Despite the strong case suggesting that the mummy does date to the Old Kingdom, Dr Ikram and her colleagues are conducting more tests to confirm the mummy’s identity.
One possibility is that another person could have been buried centuries later in a repurposing of the tomb.
“I remain hesitant until we can conduct carbon-14 dating,” Dr Ikram said.
She said that everything about the discovery pointed to funerary practices until now associated with much later dynasties.
Dr Ikram and her colleagues were astonished by the amount of resin used to preserve the body. Such generous use of resin was rare in Old Kingdom burials, she said.
The quality of the linen used to wrap the body is uncharacteristic of Old Kingdom funerary practices, which she said were far less sophisticated than in later dynasties.
In later practices, organs were removed properly and precise tools were used in the process.
“When I first saw the mummy, my first thought was it was from the Twenty-first Dynasty [1069BC to 945BC],” Dr Ikram said.
The findings may also expand experts’ understanding of international trade during the Fifth Dynasty, she said.
“The resin used to preserve the body would have been imported from the Near East, from Lebanon most likely.”
The existence of these materials in Egypt at the time would mean that trade with neighbouring empires was much more extensive than first thought.
Dr Ikram said dating analysis of the burial would take six to eight months.
Her work on the mummy is due to feature on National Geographic’s Lost Treasures of Egypt television series that will start next month.