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New technologies have allowed scientists to examine the inside of a small Egyptian mummy that is nearly 2,000 years old. This means that scientists can examine objects buried with a corpse in a non-invasive way. Using these technologies, they identified an ancient scarab that provides new insights into mummies in death and life. Surprisingly, they found that the mummy’s portrait of the deceased did not match the little girl’s mummy inside the wrappers. This may be a reflection of ancient funeral practices or beliefs about the afterlife, and this is still a mystery. In 19 th century AD researchers often took apart mummies when examining them. Later X-rays were used to examine the mummified remains in a non-invasive way. However, even this has its limitations.
Recently, researchers have used computed tomography (CT) and X-ray diffraction, which can characterize crystalline materials. One of the leaders of the research team, Stuart R. Stock, a professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, told CNN that these technologies allow them to “create a three-dimensional roadmap of the mummy’s contents.”
The little mummy was discovered in Hawara, Fayum, in 1910. It was found in a burial site, which led to a number of important discoveries. The little mom is about 1900 years old. And the remains date back to the time when Rome controlled Egypt.
The girl’s mummy was clearly elite class
The experts were able to direct very fine X-ray beams at the mummy baby girl at Argonne National Laboratory, a particle acceleration facility in Chicago. This allowed them to locate materials and objects in the mummy’s casings. Professor Stock is quoted by CNN as saying that this “emits what is essentially a fingerprint that is characteristic of the material”.
They identified a small piece of calcium carbonate, which was very pure and apparently had been molded. ‘This opaque object is just the right shape for a beetle,’ Professor Stock explained to CNN. The scarab, a scarab, was a symbol of rebirth. Replicas of beetles were often placed in a cut in the stomach of the deceased during the mummification process.
The dead girl was once a member of the local elite, although she was almost certainly not a member of the royal family. Professor Stock told 9 News that the deceased family “could afford a scarab and a mummification, which required an enormous amount of resources.”
The mystery or problem found in the mummy investigation was that the painted image or portrait of the mummy, which is quite realistic, was of an adult woman. Portraits of mummies were commonly used in Roman-Egyptian funerary practices and many similar examples of this type of funerary art have been discovered in Fayum.
The portrait of the girl’s mummy is obviously not a girl, and this is the mystery that has yet to be solved. ( Stuart R. Stock )
The Little Girl Mummy And Her Mummy Portrait
The portrait of the mummy of the deceased was considered an excellent source for “photographing” the little girl, who died almost 1900 years ago. These portraits were placed on the mummy casings directly on the face of the dead person. For example, her hairstyle in the portrait allowed them to date her as having lived between AD 150 and AD 200.However, upon further investigation, the research team found that the imaging they had done of the mummy’s contents revealed someone very different. from the portrait.
The portrait showed a young adult woman. However, the image created by the X-rays and CT scans told a different story. Science has reported that the body of the deceased belonged “to a child of about 5 years of age”. It was not what they expected based on the portrait of the funerary mummy.
Further examination revealed that the little girl was only 3 feet (94 cm) tall and had not met a violent death. The fact that this was a little mom is not surprising. In ancient Egypt, there were high levels of infant mortality, due to poor sanitation, malnutrition and epidemics, even among the elite classes.
X-ray diffraction showed the child’s mummy’s unbroken adult teeth and a mass of resin inside her skull. . ( Stuart R. Stock )
The mummy portraits may have been a belief in the afterlife
Why the portrait of the little mummy was different from the deceased is a mystery. According to Science, experts say that “the paintings may not always have been an accurate depiction of the dead individual inside.” The image can be an idealized image of what the little girl would have been like if she had lived to be an adult. On the other hand, it can represent a belief about how the dead person would have appeared in the afterlife. However, no one knows for sure.
Further research could help solve the mystery as to why the image on the mummy in the coffin is of an adult while the mummy was actually just a five-year-old girl.
Experts believe that the methods used can be very useful in future research. These advanced technologies can help identify the nature of buried or buried objects without having to discard and potentially damage a mummified body.
Top image: Computed tomography image of the girl’s mummy Source: Stuart R. Stock
By Ed Whelan
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