Researchers ‘shocked’ to find Egyptian mummy was a pregnant woman
Polish researchers examining an ancient Egyptian mummy that they expected to be a male priest were surprised when X-rays and computer tests revealed instead that it was a mummy of a woman who had been seven months pregnant.
The researchers said on Thursday it was the world’s first known case of such a well-preserved ancient mummy of a pregnant woman.
The mummy was brought to
Warsaw in 1826 and the inscription on the coffin named a male priest. No previous examination had disproved the belief that it was a male.
“Our first surprise was that it has no penis, but instead it has breasts and long hair, and then we found out that it’s a pregnant woman,” Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, an anthropologist and archeologist, told the Associated Press. “When we saw the little foot and then the little hand [of the foetus] we were really shocked.”
The researchers estimated the woman was between 20 and 30 years old and said the size of the baby’s skull suggested she was 26 to 28 weeks pregnant.
Their findings – from the Warsaw
Mummy Project, a study of mummies at the Polish capital’s national museum – were published this week in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
“This is the first known case of a pregnant embalmed body ... It opens up new possibilities of researching pregnancy in ancient times and practices related to maternity,” the article said.
Team member Wojciech Ejsmond said: “We do not know why the foetus was not taken out of the belly of the deceased during mummification.
“That is why this mummy is truly unique. We have not been able to find any similar cases. This means that ‘our’ mummy is the only recognised in the world with a foetus,” he said.
Based on an analysis of the hieroglyphs on the sarcophagus, the mummy was originally thought to be of a male priest who lived between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.
Scientists now believe it could be even older than that, and are looking into the possible causes of death.
The mummy has not been opened, but one scan showed the woman had curly hair down to her shoulders.