Archaeologists discover the secrets of a mummy “unwrapping” it digitally

Egyptian scientists have used three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) to “unwrap”, for the first time in 2,000 years, the royal mummy of Pharaoh Amenhotep I and study its contents.

All the royal mummies found in the 19th and 20th centuries have long been opened for study, but Egyptologists have never dared to open the mummy of Amenhotep I. Not because of any mythical curse, but because, beautifully decorated with garlands of flowers, and with the face and neck covered by an exquisite realistic face mask inlaid with colored stones.

It is the first time in three millennia that the mummy of Amenhotep has been opened. The previous time was in the 11th century BC, more than four centuries after its original mummification and burial. Hieroglyphs have described how, during the last dynasty, priests restored and reburied royal mummies from older dynasties, to

“The fact that the mummy of Amenhotep I had never been unfolded in modern times provided us with a unique opportunity: not only to study how it had originally been mummified and buried, but also how it had been treated and reburied twice, centuries after his death, by the high priests of Amun ”, explains Dr. Sahar Saleem, professor of radiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cairo and radiologist of the Egyptian Mummies Project, first author of the study.

“By digitally unwrapping the mummy and ‘peeling’ its virtual layers – the face mask, bandages and the mummy itself – we were able to study this well-preserved pharaoh in unprecedented detail –go on-. We show that Amenhotep I He was approximately 169 cm tall, circumcised, and had good teeth. Within its wrappings, it wore 30 charms and a unique gold sash with gold beads. “

And add that “Amenhotep I appears to have physically resembled his father: he had a narrow chin, a small, narrow nose, curly hair, and slightly protruding upper teeth.”

“We were unable to find any injury or disfigurement due to disease that would justify the cause of death, except for numerous post-mortem mutilations, presumably carried out by grave robbers after their first burial –Explain-. Its entrails had been removed by the first mummifiers, but not the brain or the heart.

The mummy of Amenhotep I (whose name means “Amun is satisfied”) was discovered in 1881 -among other re-buried royal mummies- at the archaeological site of Deir el Bahari, in southern Egypt.

Second pharaoh of the 18th Egyptian dynasty (after his father Ahmose I, who had driven out the invading Hyksos and reunified Egypt). His was something of a golden age: Egypt was prosperous and secure, while Pharaoh ordered a wave of religious buildings and led successful military expeditions to Libya and northern Sudan. After his death, he and his mother Ahmose-Nefertari were worshiped as gods.

Sahar Saleem and his co-author, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, had previously speculated that the primary intention of 11th-century restorers was to reuse royal burial material for later pharaohs. But

“We show that, at least in the case of Amenhotep I, the priests of the 21st dynasty lovingly repaired the wounds inflicted by the grave robbers, restored his mummy to its former splendor and kept the magnificent jewels and amulets in place”, Saleem emphasizes.

Hawass and Saleem studied more than 40 royal mummies from the New Kingdom in the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquity project launched in 2005. Twenty-two royal mummies, including that of Amenhotep I, were moved in April 2021 to a new museum in El Cairo. The face of the mummy of Amenhotep I with his mask was the icon of the spectacular “Parade of the Golden Royal Mummies” on March 3, 2021 in Cairo.

“We show that CT images can in anthropological and archaeological studies of mummies, including those of other civilizations, for example Peru ”, Saleem and Hawass conclude.

The study has been published in Frontiers of Medicine.

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