Another Unexpected Turn In Yhe Mysterious "Pregnant" Mummy Case
Update: 2022-07-25 23:27 IST
Another Unexpected Turn In Yhe Mysterious "Pregnant" Mummy Case
Researchers believe that the mystery ancient Egyptian woman who may have been pregnant at the time of her death also had cancer.The mummy's skull deformities point to a sizeable tumour behind the left eye, but additional testing is needed to determine whether the tumour was malignant.
The mysterious lady mummies, also known as the "Mysterious Lady," most likely originated in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor). Although it is from the first century BCE, it was discovered locked within a male priest's sarcophagus.
Researchers with the Warsaw Mummy Project in Poland recently opened the sarcophagus for the first time and were shocked to discover the remains of an unidentified female within. They quickly started dissecting the body in an effort to determine why she had been placed in someone else's coffin.
Researchers from the project published a study in April 2021 in which they claimed that the Mysterious Lady was the first known pregnant mummy because CT scans of her discovered the remains of a foetus inside her womb. The group calculated that the mother passed away sometime around the 28th week of her pregnancy.
A follow-up publication from the Polish researchers, published in January 2022, detailed how the foetus had pickled like an egg within the mummy. The fossilised foetus, according to some experts, may actually be a warped embalming pack that was inserted into the body to replace removed organs during the mummification process. Others have questioned whether the mummy was even pregnant at all.
According to a blog post by researchers with the Warsaw Mummy Project, the same research team has now declared that the Mysterious Lady most likely had nasopharynx cancer, which affects the mouth, nasal cavity, and trachea.
The new assertions are supported by abnormalities in the mummy's skull, but neither peer review nor chemical testing have been done to validate the findings.
A recent 3D reconstruction of the Mysterious Lady's skull revealed a 0.27-inch (7-millimeter) hole behind the left eye socket, which is how the researchers first learned about the suspected cancer.
Marzena Oarek-Szilke stated that a co-director of the Warsaw Mummy Project and an archaeologist and anthropologist at the Medical University of Warsaw, this odd gap may have developed as a tumour or lesion that drove the surrounding bone to separate from the remainder of the socket.
A cyst or cribra orbitalia, a condition brought on by anaemia or a deficiency in iron (which is common in pregnant women), could also be to blame for the hole, according to Oarek-Szilke. These conditions can alter the surface of the eye sockets.
However, she continued, further minor bone defects in the sinuses, mouth, and nasal cavity make cancer the most likely culprit.Normal circumstances would make it hard to determine the precise cause of such anomalies in a skull this old. However, because to the Mysterious Lady's exceptional preservation, bits of soft tissue are still attached to her bones.
Using this tissue, the researchers can perform histopathological tests to see if the Mysterious Lady had cancer. These tests are similar to those used today to test for cancer. The possibility of a discovery excites the researchers because it is unusual to learn how mummified people passed away.
Meanwhile, there is still a lot to discover about the Mysterious Lady, including who she was and the reason why she was discovered in the wrong coffin.