Egyptian Mummy Considered to Be of a Male Priest Turned Out to Be of a Pregnant Female With Fetus Upon Scanning

Ancient Egyptian culture and traditions especially mummification have always gathered a lot of interest from experts and the common public. No matter how many studies are conducted on mummies, something mindblowing continues to come to the surface. In 2021, the history of mummification added another chapter when the mummy of a pregnant woman was discovered for the first time in the National Museum in Warsaw, BBC reported. The mummy in question was initially considered to be of a male priest named Hor-Djehuti but scans featuring a little foot proved otherwise.

The mummy was uncovered during a museum-wide project in which all the mummies in the National Museum were being examined, CNN reported. The woman in question was one of the last ones to be analyzed and ended up giving the researchers their biggest finding.

"We had the last look at the images and noticed a familiar image......in the deceased woman’s abdomen: a tiny foot," Marzena Ożarek-Szilke, anthropologist and archaeologist from the Faculty of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, reminisced about the moment her team felt that their subject could be pregnant.

The mummy was considered to be of a man, Hor-Djehuti, because of an inscription found on the coffin in the 1920s. Computer tomography and detailed analysis proved this assertion to be wrong. 3D visualization of the mummy showcased long, curly hair and mummified breasts, solidifying the team's assumption that the mummy was a woman.

Considering the unique nature of the mummy further probing was done and it was found that the woman was likely from the elite society and was aged 20 to 30 at the time of her death, BBC reported. The mummy was dated back to the First Century B.C. They also discovered evidence of a fetus aged between 26 and 30 weeks in the remains, during its mother's demise.

At the time of this revelation, this was the only known example of a mummified pregnant woman in the world. "This is our most important and most significant finding so far, a total surprise," team member Wojciech Ejsmond of the Polish Academy of Sciences claimed.

The researchers observed that the fetus was inside the woman's body. Experts are not sure why it was not extracted during embalming. They speculate that beliefs about an afterlife or physical difficulties associated with the task could be the reason behind this step. The mummy's identity is yet to be uncovered and has been labeled the Mysterious Lady of the National Museum in Warsaw by researchers. The team's next objective is to figure out the woman's cause of death.