A new analysis of the famous 2,500-year-old mummy known as the ‘Screaming Woman’ might change what we think of as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mummification and could possibly solve a mystery that has puzzled experts for nearly 90 years.
In 1881, the Deir el-Bahari Royal Cache was discovered in Luxor, where priests of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties hid the corpse of royal members from previous dynasties to protect them from grave robbers. In 1935, after initial excavations at Deir el-Bahari Royal Cache, the Metropolitan Museum of Art found the tomb of Senmut, a royal architect. Beneath his tomb was another chamber containing his mother, Hat-Nufer, and other relatives. Among them was the ‘Screaming Woman’, a richly decorated mummy with her mouth open as if screaming.
Normally, an open mouth suggests poor mummification, but this didn’t seem to fit with her royal burial. Now, after 89 years, new research might explain this. Radiology professor Sahar Saleem and his colleagues at Cairo University’s Kasr Al Ainy Hospital have published a new study in the journal Frontiers in Medicine that provides never-before-seen, detailed looks at the mummy along with reliable theories about her health near the end of her life. The team used advanced imaging techniques to study the mummy and suggest the open mouth might have been caused by a muscle spasm at death, not a botched mummification. Scans show the woman, about 48 when she died, had lost several teeth before death, possibly due to bone resorption, and had mild spine arthritis.
Interestingly, the ‘Screaming Woman’s body was found without the usual embalming incision, suggesting she might have been buried with her organs still inside — a surprising find since it was thought that organs were always removed. Egyptologists have long believed classic New Kingdom (1550-1069 BCE) mummifications entailed the removal of a cadaver’s organs except their heart.
The study also found that her skin had traces of expensive embalming materials like juniper and frankincense, which were imported from Southern Arabia, East Africa, or the Eastern Mediterranean. Her hair was dyed with henna, and she wore a wig made from treated date palm fibers to look youthful. “These findings support the ancient trade of embalming materials in ancient Egypt,” Popular Science quoted Saleem as saying. These embalming methods, combined with her well-preserved appearance, “contradicts the traditional belief that a failure to remove her inner organs implied poor mummification,” said Saleem.
While a definitive answer about the Screaming Woman’s cause of death remains a mystery, the findings suggest that not all mummifications involved organ removal and that the Screaming Woman’s appearance was likely not due to poor preservation. Regardless, Saleem calls the Screaming Woman a “true ‘time capsule’ of the way that she died and was mummified.”
