8 ways new technology changed the way we think about ancient Egyptian mummies

About 2,300 years ago, a wealthy teen’s family buried him with 49 amulets made of gold and semi-precious stones. His body was sitting in the basement of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum for over 100 years. 

When Cario University radiologist Sahar Saleem took CT scans of the mummified remains, she and her fellow researchers discovered something unique about the 14- or 15-year-old who’s known as the “golden boy”: He was uncircumcised. 

It’s possible he simply hadn’t undergone the procedure yet, but Salima Ikram, head of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, said it could indicate that foreigners started using Egyptian burial practices.  

“He could have come from any number of places. He could be Nubian, Greek, Persian, anywhere from Asia Minor where they weren’t circumcised,” she told The Guardian in 2023.

However, she also added that this was speculation: “I wouldn’t hang all of this on one fragile foreskin.”

Researchers were surprised to find a mummified teenager who died over 2,000 years ago had been pregnant with twins.

The teen, who was between 14 and 17, likely died while giving birth. Embalmers wrapped the first child and placed it between her legs. 

It wasn’t until researcher Francine Margolis took CT scans of the girl that she found evidence of the second child still inside the mummified body. 

Because scientists first excavated the remains in 1908, they weren’t treated with the same care they would be today. For example, the teen’s head went missing at some point. It was either reburied, sent to a local museum, or stolen, according to Margolis. 

It’s unclear if anyone – including the early researchers, the embalmers, and the girl herself – knew she was having twins, Margolis told Business Insider via email in January.

In the mid-1930s, the remains of a mummified woman were found in Luxor, Egypt. She became known as the “screaming woman” because of her open-mouthed expression, which seemed terrified. 

A recent study suggested she may well have been afraid for her life and died mid-scream, either from pain or fright. 

Cairo University radiologist Sahar Saleem said a cadaveric spasm may have frozen the scream on her face. Cadaveric spasms, when muscles stiffen immediately after death, are caused by “severe physical or emotional activity,” NPR reported in August.

There’s a possibility poor burial practices or other factors led to the woman’s permanently open mouth. But Saleem performed CT scans on the remains and found that the funerary techniques seemed careful and expensive. 

Researchers still don’t know what caused the woman’s death. She appeared to be in her late 40s and seemed to be in relatively good health.

A study published in late 2021 revealed the results of the first-ever 3D CT scan of the 3,500-year-old royal mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I. 

The technology provided a digital recreation of the remains in incredible detail. Scientists saw Amenhotep I’s face, including the delicate, wispy hair on the back of his head.  

Now “we know more or less what he looked like,” Wojciech Ejsmond, an Egyptologist from the Warsaw Mummy Project who was not involved in that work, told Business Insider in 2022.

The study found he had a narrow chin, a small narrow nose, curly hair, mildly protruding upper teeth, and a pierced left ear. The scan also revealed Amenhotep I died suspiciously young, at the age of 35.

There’s no sign of any kind of physical illness on his remains: his teeth were in good health and he had no apparent injuries. 

“As far as we know nothing wrong about his health was detected. So it’s surprising that he died at such a young age,” Ejsmond said.

For centuries, scientists thought this mummy was of a man. Its sarcophagus said it was the remains of Hor-Djehuty, a male priest who lived between 100 BCE and 100 CE.

A study published in 2021 revealed the remains lacked a penis but had traces of breast tissue, indicating it was a mummy of an unnamed woman. 

Even more bizarrely, scientists found a structure inside the woman’s abdomen. They said the structure was likely a fetus and claimed the discovery of the first-ever pregnant mummy.

But one year later, other researchers performed more CT scans on the body and said the structure was more likely a bundle of cloth and possibly other body parts. Embalmers often stuffed the pelvis with linen coated in resin or other materials, sometimes containing the person’s organs.

As many as 70 million animals were embalmed by ancient Egyptians over the years.

A 2020 study peered into the mummies of a snake and a cat from the collection of the Egypt Center at Swansea University in the UK. They used a technique called micro-CT scanning to get more details about the embalming process.

The study revealed that a juvenile Egyptian cobra was likely killed after being whipped against the floor. “They used the snake like a bullwhip,” Rich Johnston, the lead author of the study, previously told Insider.

The snake’s damaged kidneys suggested it didn’t get enough water while alive. The scans also showed the snake’s throat was filled with a substance called natron, a type of resin.

This means the embalmer may have chosen to do an “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony — a burial ritual meant to allow a mummy to eat, breathe, and enjoy offerings in the afterlife.

Researchers virtually unwrapped a cat that may have met an unfortunate end.  

Analysis of the cat’s teeth suggested he was barely older than a kitten, about 5 months old.

The cat’s neck bones were separated, so either the priests strangled the cat before death or broke its neck during embalming. 

A 2022 study described wrappings on the foot of a young girl who died about 2,000 years ago. It offered a rare clue into ancient medical practices.

The foot clearly showed dressing wrapped around what looked like an infected wound, providing the first evidence that ancient Egyptians had more extensive knowledge of treating wounds than previously thought, Insider reported in 2022.

This dressing could easily have been missed, or mistaken for embalming bandages, had the mummy been unwrapped. 

“It was really exciting because we didn’t expect it,” Egyptologist and study author Albert Zink, told Insider at the time. “It was never described before.”

Victorian Egyptologists would host public unwrapping parties that were thought to be the height of sophistication.

They were disastrous for the remains, exposing them to air and humidity that can do irreparable damage.

Some royal mummies were unveiled by running a knife straight from their head to their toes, with little care.

Back then, scientists did not keep precise records, and a lot of valuable information has been lost over time. 

The way early excavators treated mummified remains partly explains why the remains of King Tutankhamun, a Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty buried with the famous golden mask, are in such poor shape today.

After uncovering the remains in the 1920s, the Egyptologists were so frustrated at not being able to unstick the mummy from the bottom of the coffin that they sawed him in half and chiseled his remains out.

“CT scanning and X-rays are the basic ways of searching mummies nowadays because you cannot unwrap mummies in museums,” Ejsmond said.