Mummy's Dark Secret

Research into the body of a woman buried 3,500 years ago in Egypt may reveal the painful truth behind her facial expression.

- IAN RANDALL

EGYPT, 1935. ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCAVATING A tomb in the necropolis of Thebes make an unsettling discovery: the mummified remains of an elderly woman, her mouth locked open in a frightful rictus as if screaming in horror.

In a further mystery, recent scans of the "Screaming Woman" revealed that she still possessed her internal organs, most of which would ordinarily have been removed during the embalming process.

If the woman had been mummified poorly, it was initially reasoned, this might explain her horrific expression, with the embalmers having simply neglected to close her mouth prior to her burial some 3,500 years ago.

However, an investigation by researchers from Cairo University and Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has made a case for the awful alternative-the poor woman did indeed die screaming in sheer agony.

"Here we show that she was embalmed with costly, imported embalming material," said paper author and radiologist professor Sahar Saleem, of Cairo University's Kasr AI Ainy Hospital, in a statement.

She continued: "This, and the mummy's well-preserved appearance, contradicts the traditional belief that a failure to remove her inner organs implied poor mummification."

In the study, Saleem took CT scans to allow her to virtually dissect the Screaming Woman and study her condition and state of preservation in fresh detail.

She also studied the materials used in the embalming process using such advanced techniques as scanning electron microscopy in which a surface is probed using a beam of electrons to create a high-resolution image and X-ray diffraction analysis, a non-destructive method that can reveal the chemical composition of a target object. The researchers' analysis of the previously unwrapped mummy revealed that it bore no embalming incision, consistent with how its internal organs (including the brain, lungs and liver) had been left in place.