Two mysteries were revealed one after another inside the mummy of an Egyptian girl more than 2,300 years old, causing both surprise and sadness.
The famous embalming technique has preserved everything that happened inside the young woman’s body and may have been the cause of her death. Those were two other little mummies inside her body.
The main mummy was identified as a young woman about 14-17 years old, living in the Late Period of ancient Egypt (approximately between 712 and 332 BC), found in the early years of the twentieth century.
Egyptian mummies are displayed in the museum
According to Live Science, when opening the coffin in 1908, scientists discovered a second mummy: It was an intact, bandaged fetus. In addition, between the girl’s legs there is a part of the placenta.
Researchers then dissected the mummy and discovered the fetus’s skull was stuck in the birth canal, which helped conclude that the young woman had died from a difficult birth.
But it wasn’t until the next century that scientists discovered the second mystery inside the chest of Egyptian girls.
Mummy of Egyptian girl with intact braids and imaging results showing fetuses inside her body – Photo: ANCIENT ORIGINS
It was a second fetus, intact, indirectly embalmed through the process of the mother’s body being carefully embalmed.
According to Francine Margolis – a freelance archaeologist in the US, the main author of the study with the participation of George Washington University (GWU – USA) – this is the first mummy of a female pregnant with twins discovered in the world. gender.
The article published in the scientific journal International Journal of Osteoarchaeology said that in a new study, a group of American scientists used modern imaging diagnostic tools to scan the mummy, thereby detecting the second fetus.
The cause of the mysterious location – in the chest of the mother’s mummy – may be because the diaphragm and some other soft structures were gradually damaged after her death, leading to the mummy of the second fetus no longer being preserved. remain in the abdomen.
The Egyptian girl was determined to be only 1.52m tall and weighed about 45-55kg when alive – a small body size compared to adult Egyptians.
Young age, an underdeveloped body with a narrow pelvis, combined with the condition of twins are believed to be the cause of death during childbirth. Until now, twin pregnancies have always been considered a high-risk pregnancy.
This new discovery once again emphasizes the harshness of labor in ancient times, especially when women often had to marry, become pregnant, and give birth when they were still young women, their bodies not yet fully developed for them. motherhood purpose.
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