A recent international study led by archaeologist Kamila Braulińska from the University of Warsaw challenged previous claims that an ancient Egyptian mummy known as the Mystery Lady was pregnant or suffered from nasopharyngeal cancer. The team of 14 researchers published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences last month, asserting that there was no evidence to support earlier hypotheses regarding the mummy's condition.
According to Sky News Arabia, the researchers re-examined over 1,300 raw computed tomography slices of the mummy, produced in 2015, to determine if there was any radiological evidence of pregnancy or cancer. "All experts who reanalyzed the CT images concluded there was no fetus in the Mysterious Lady mummy, and the material previously interpreted as a decomposed fetus was merely part of the embalming process," the study stated.
The mummy, dating back to the 1st century BCE, was discovered in Luxor, Egypt (ancient Thebes), and was transferred to the University of Warsaw in Poland in 1826. For more than a century, the mummy was not studied scientifically, with examinations occurring only in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Initially believed to be the remains of a male priest due to the inscriptions on the coffin, analyses later proved that the mummy is that of a woman in her twenties. In 2021, experts from the Warsaw Mummy Project concluded that she was pregnant between six and a half to seven and a half months, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. This claim made headlines in the media, and the mummy was nicknamed the Mystery Lady.
However, the new study refutes these findings. The researchers noted that the suggestion the fetus's skeleton and soft tissue did not show up on the scans because of decomposition is impossible, as the acids within the human body are insufficient to dissolve bone, especially after embalming.
Regarding the claim of cancer, none of the experts were able to find clear evidence supporting this hypothesis. The lesions found in the Mystery Lady's skull were probably the result of a poorly performed brain extraction procedure during the mummification process.
"The mainstream media were fascinated by the idea of a pregnant mummy, although these claims had not been verified by a radiologist, as is the usual practice in these cases," the authors of the new study explained, according to National Geographic Historia.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.
