Ancient World Review

Metropolitan Museum Of Art Will Return Looted Coffin

Video from Jan. 2019.

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art will return an ancient gilded coffin to Egypt after New York prosecutors determined that it had been looted from that country, the museum said." Source: Daily Mail (Feb. 2019).

"The museum had purchased the prized coffin, dating from the first century BCE, in July 2017 from a Paris art dealer for a price of nearly $4 million.

"But the Manhattan district attorney's office determined that the mummy-shaped golden coffin had been sold with fake documentation, including a forged 1971 Egyptian export license."

Note: This is the coffin of "Nedjemankh, a high-ranking priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef of Herakleopolis," The museum says that it will try to recoup its considerable investment but if I had paid four million dollars for anything I wouldn't let it go so quickly unless I was sure I could get my money back. In any case, this is a classic example of the risks involved with buying archaeological artifacts from private dealers.

Mold Formations Confirm That King Tut's Tomb Was Prepared In A Rush

"King Tut, silent in Egypt's Valley of the Kings for 3,000 years, may still have secrets to reveal. Researchers, examining what remains of ancient microbes on the walls of the young pharaoh's tomb, surmise that he may have been buried in a hurry, so quickly that the walls had not even dried when the tomb was closed." Source: ABC News (2006).

"Due to the sudden death of Tutankhamun (King Tut), it was believed that probably not enough time was available to properly finish King Tut’s tomb. Instead, it was believed that the tomb that was appointed to him was that of his vizier Ay (Aye). This was made apparent through the tomb’s size as most kings had larger and more elaborate tombs compared to King Tut. Not only was the tomb considered to be on the smaller side, but the burial chamber was the only room that had been painted within the structure. This conceivable late-planning tactic was further reaffirmed as the tomb only had a few large figures painted on the walls." Source: KingTutOne, Ancient Egypt Online.

Maze Of Tombs With 40 (?) Perfectly Preserved Mummies Discovered In Egypt

"Archaeologists have discovered a maze of tombs in Egypt holding tens of mummies, of all ages, possibly dating back to the Ptolemaic dynasty, which lasted from 305 to 30 B.C." Source: Live Science.

"The mummies, which likely belonged to a family from the elite middle class, were discovered at the Egyptian archaeological site called Tuna el-Gebel, which lies to the west of the Nile River, the Egyptian antiquities ministry announced. The burials date back to a line of rulers descended from Ptolemy Soter, who was one of Alexander the Great's generals."

Note: "Archaeologists have been exploring Tuna el-Gebel cemeteries for about 80 years. For instance, in 1934, archaeologists announced they had discovered fragments painted with mythical scenes at a house at the site, showing episodes of Agamemnon and Oedipus legends, according to a New York Times article. In 2017, they discovered a cemetery at el-Gebel with underground catacombs. And just last February, the discovery of a cemetery with mummified high priests was announced." (Live Science)

500-Year-Old Greenland Mummies Had Heart Disease

"Five mummies lay entombed in ice in Greenland for some 500 years, their flesh, muscles and even their blood vessels sealed off from the vagaries of decay. Now, scientists have analyzed the mummies to find that some of them had arteries that were coated with plaque, a sign of atherosclerosis." Source: Live Science.

Egyptian Mummy Oldest Heart Disease Case

Video from 2015.

"An ancient Egyptian princess would have needed bypass surgery if she'd lived today, according to researchers who examined the mummy and found blocked arteries in her heart in what's now the oldest case of human heart disease." Source: Live Science (2011).

"And she wasn't the only one: An investigation of 44 mummies revealed that nearly half had evidence of calcification in their arteries, or atherosclerosis."

Report from 2011.

Mummy Of Egyptian Princess (?) Probably Dismembered By Tomb Raiders

Note: I'm not sure whose mummy this is. According to Wikipedia, "KV64 is the tomb of an (as yet) unknown 18th Dynasty burial re-used in the 22nd Dynasty for an intrusive burial of the lady Nehmes Bastet, a singer at the temple of Karnak, in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. It is located on the pathway to Tomb KV34 (Thuthmosis III) in the main Valley of the Kings. KV64 was found by Dr Elina Paulin-Grothe of the University of Basel."

Incidentally, tomb-robbers weren't the only ones responsible for mummy mutilations. According to journalist Jo Marchant's account of the discovery of KV64, the mummy of Nehemes-Bastet was still wrapped and covered with a black resin that made it impossible to remove without damage. The famous archaeologist, Howard Carter, ran into the same thing when he discovered the tomb of King Tut, but he apparently wasn't too worried about it:

"...Howard Carter had the same problem when he unwrapped the mummy of Tutankhamun in 1925. Undaunted, he cut the mummy into pieces and scraped it out with hot knives..."

Related: Tomb Robbing in Ancient Egypt.

The Dog Catacombs Of Anubis

Video from 2015. Good images. Bad audio.

"Animal sacrifice was rampant in ancient Egypt, and underneath the country’s earliest pyramid [the Pyramid of Djoser aka the Step Pyramid] lie remnants of around 8 million mummified animals." Source: The Daily Beast.

Notes: The quote above is misleading because it makes it sound like these mummified animals were discovered under the famous Step Pyramid. In reality, the Catacombs of Anubis aka the Dog Catacombs are located under the desert to the northeast of the pyramid.

"The Dog Catacombs, as they are known, date to 747-730 B.C., and are dedicated to Anubis, the Egyptians' jackal-headed god of the dead," according to Live Science (2011). "They were first documented in the 19th century; however, they were never fully excavated."

 "According to a new research study, a 5,000 square foot network of underground tunnels are stuffed full of linen-wrapped dogs, along with a few foxes and cats laid to rest thousands of years ago by the cult following of a canine-like deity [Anubis] who Egyptians believed would usher them into the afterlife." (Daily Beast)

"A few of these animals presumably lived in the Anubieion temple at Saqqara, revered as living representatives of the god ... Their mummies might be categorized as those of 'sacred animals' ... who were worshipped during their lifetimes as manifestations of the god, and then mummified and buried with great pomp after their death." -- Killing Man's Best Friend?, Archaeological Review From Cambridge, 2013.

The Animal Mummy Racket In Ancient Egypt

"A scanning project [of Egyptian animal mummies] at Manchester Museum and the University of Manchester has revealed that about a third of the bundles of cloth are empty inside." Source: BBC (2015).

"Researchers believe there was a huge appetite for these religious offerings, and demand for the mummies may have outstripped supply."

Note: Animal mummies were apparently used as votive offerings in ancient Egypt, where many of the gods were represented in animal forms:

"Animal mummies were votive gifts. Today you'd have a candle in a cathedral; in Egyptian times you would have an animal mummy." (BBC)

"You would go to a special site, buy an animal mummy, using a system of barter. You'd then give it to a priest, who would collect a group of animal mummies and bury them."

Unfortunately, it looks like many of the ordinary people who just wanted to show their devotion fell victim to a swindle operated by the embalmers. Many of these "mummies" contained no animal parts at all. Instead, they were stuffed with "organic material such as mud, sticks and reeds, that would have been lying around the embalmers' workshops, and also things like eggshells and feathers, which were associated with the animals, but aren't the animals themselves."

Pagan or Christian, religion in general has always been rife with fraud.

Prehistoric Mummy Reveals Ancient Egyptian Embalming "Recipe" Was Around For Millennia

Getty Museum video from 2009.

"The ancient Egyptians developed sophisticated embalming treatments far earlier and across a wider geographical area than had been previously known, forensic tests on a well-known prehistoric mummy have revealed." Source: Science Daily (Aug. 2018).

These tests were performed on a 3,600-year-old mummy held in the Egyptian museum of Turin. Once believed to be a "natural" mummy, i.e., a corpse mummified by natural processes, it appears that it "had in fact undergone an embalming process, with a plant oil, heated conifer resin, an aromatic plant extract and a plant gum/sugar mixed together and used to impregnate the funerary textiles in which the body was wrapped."

Video from 2011.

"This study presents the first extant Predynastic mummy (... c. 3700–3500 BC) with unequivocal scientific evidence for 'embalming agents' employed in the funerary treatment of the body. The results reveal a recipe of a plant oil, with far lesser amounts of a heated conifer resin, an aromatic plant extract/‘balsam’ and a plant gum/sugar, which is notably similar to those ‘balms’ identified in prehistoric times both in terms of the constituents and relative proportions of those ingredients. Moreover, this recipe contained antibacterial agents, used in similar proportions to those employed by the Egyptian embalmers when their skill was at its peak, some 2500 years later." Source: A prehistoric Egyptian mummy: Evidence for an ‘embalming recipe’ and the evolution of early formative funerary treatments, Journal of Archaeological Science, Dec. 2018, Science Direct.

Related: Prehistoric UV Cream Discovered on Mummy Makes Him the Oldest Embalmed Egyptian By Far.

The Mystery Of Egypt's Screaming Mummy

Video from 2008.

"'The gruesome mummy of Unknown Man E, also known as the ‘Screaming Mummy’, has long puzzled scholars,' renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that this particular mummy is surrounded in mystery. Although he was re-buried in the royal mummy cache of Deir Al-Bahari, he was not wrapped in the usual fine linen bandages like the rest of the mummies. Instead, he was wrapped in sheepskin, which was considered impure by the ancient Egyptians. His hands and feet were tied with leather thongs. He was not even mummified, but was merely left to dry in natron and then had some resin poured into his open mouth." Source: Archaeology News Network.

Note: There has been speculation that this is the mummy of a 20th Dynasty Egyptian prince known as Pentawar who was "involved in the so-called 'harem conspiracy', a plot to kill his father [Ramesses III] and place Pentawer on the throne," according to Wikipedia. "He either killed himself or was executed following the assassination attempt."