"A team of researchers with the National University of San Marcos has found and recovered a well-preserved pre-Incan mummy in an underground tomb. They have posted their findings on the university's Noticias page." Source: Phys.org.
"Prior research has shown that the area on the outskirts of modern Lima was once part of a bustling ancient community of as many as 10,000 people. Those who lived there were mostly traders, serving as go-betweens for people from the mountains and those who lived on the coast of what is now Peru. Researchers have been excavating a site there called the Cajamarquilla archaeological complex, which is located approximately 25 kilometers from Lima."
"The mummified and skeletal remains of more than 160 children lie preserved in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo in northern Sicily, and soon, scientists hope to uncover some of the mysteries surrounding their lives and deaths using X-ray technology." Source: Live Science.
"The catacombs contain at least 1,284 mummified and skeletonized corpses of varying ages, according to the new research project's website. The catacombs were in use from the late 1590s to 1880, although two additional bodies were buried there in the early 20th century, according to the Palermo Catacombs website."
"'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 (2018).
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."
It's possible, I guess, that this man wasn't actually screaming at the time of his death. The drying out process may have caused his mouth to open.
"All the royal mummies found in the 19th and 20th centuries have long since been opened for study. With one exception: Egyptologists have never been bold enough to open the mummy of Pharaoh Amenhotep I. Not because of any mythical curse, but because it is perfectly wrapped, beautifully decorated with flower garlands, and with face and neck covered by an exquisite lifelike facemask inset with colorful stones. But now for the first time, scientists from Egypt have used three-dimensional CT (computed tomography) scanning to 'digitally unwrap' this royal mummy and study its contents." Source: Phys.org.
"Archaeologists have discovered the remains of three ancient Egyptian inhabitants — a man, woman and child — outfitted with tongues of gold foil, a treasure likely intended to help them speak with gods in the afterlife, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities." (Live Science)
"The burials were found in two neighboring tombs. One of the tombs, which had been plundered by grave robbers, held the remains of the woman and a 3-year-old child, and it had a limestone sarcophagus with a lid shaped like a woman, according to Ahram Online. But the man's grave, from the 26th dynasty (664 B.C. to 525 B.C.), also known as the Saite period, was untouched.
"'This is very important, because it's rare to find a tomb that is totally sealed,' Esther Pons Mellado, co-director of the archaeological mission of Oxyrhynchus, told The National, a newspaper that covers the Middle East."
"This stolen or looted mummy hand, dating to the eighth century B.C., was brought into the United States from Egypt. It was falsely declared as being a 'science fiction movie prop.' The hand was returned to Egypt, along with other artifacts, in November 2016." Source: Live Science (2017). This article includes pictures and details about several of the looted artifacts mentioned in the video.
These artifacts were recovered as part of the US Immigration & Customs Enforcement's Operation Mummy's Curse that targeted "an international criminal network that illegally smuggled and imported more than 7,000 cultural items from around the world".
"DNA tests on British prehistoric mummies revealed they were made of body parts from several different people, arranged to look like one person." Source: BBC (2011)
"It is thought the body parts may have come from people in the same families."
Note:Cladh Hallan is the name of an archaeological site on the island of South Uist. According to one expert on Bronze Age Britain, these composite mummies may not have been buried immediately, but "played an active part in society [in a form of ancestral worship], as they do in some tribal societies in other parts of the world." As such, they may "have been asked for spiritual advice to help the community make decisions."
Ramesses III, the second pharaoh (1186 - 1155 BC?) of the Twentieth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, was "the last great monarch of the New Kingdom to wield any substantial authority over Egypt." (Wikipedia) "His long reign saw the decline of Egyptian political and economic power, linked to a series of invasions and internal economic problems that also plagued pharaohs before him." This turmoil may have led to his assassination, but I'm just guessing about that. It's also possible that his murder was just another one of the intrafamilial power grabs so common in ancient monarchies.
According to official trial transcripts, the pharaoh was killed in the so-called Harem Conspiracy "led by his wife, Tiye and her eldest son Pentawere." The conspirators attacked Ramesses while he was visiting his royal harem (for whatever reason -- there's lots of room for lurid speculation here). It sounds like they used the noise and chaos surrounding an annual festival called the Beautiful Festival of the Valley to provide cover for the murder. Judging by the condition of the mummy, they slashed his throat down to the vertebrate in a killing that would have done Jack the Ripper proud.
The murder was carried out in order to put Ramesses' son, Pentawere, on the throne, but the conspiracy failed in that respect:
"It is possible that other members of the royal family loyal to the future Ramesses IV [the pharaoh's second son] reacted quickly to outmaneuvre the conspirators. Ramesses IV selected twelve magistrates to investigate and judge the case across five trials. In addition to the chief conspirators named above, those who had knowledge of the conspiracy but did not report it were arrested, tried, and punished. Twenty-eight people were executed."
No one knows what happened to Ramesses III's wife, Tiye, the ringleader of the conspiracy. According to Egypt Today (2020), "The same royal cache in Deir el-Bahari [next video] contained a mummy of a woman showing signs of terror, pain and screaming on her face, known as the 'Screaming Woman Mummy'. Her head is tilted to the right side, and her legs are bent and wrapped at the ankle, while the other mummies are closed-mouthed and placed in a straight position." This mummy, however, apparently belonged to an older woman who died of a heart attack. It was carefully mummified in the traditional way, so it probably isn't Tiye. As far as I can tell, her fate is still a mystery.
As for Pentawere, it appears that he was either hanged or strangled to death or forced to commit suicide and hanged himself. His corpse was unceremoniously embalmed and buried, surviving to this day as Unknown Man E aka the Screaming Mummy. That assumes, of course, that Unknown Man E has been correctly identified.
As usual with these reconstructions, details like skin tone, hair style, jewelry, etc. are purely speculative.
Video from 2015. Views of mummy brain start at 4:56. The remains look something like granola.
This was an unusual find because ancient Egyptian embalmers normally removed the brain during the mummification process using a procedure called excerebration. I guess the embalmers couldn't be bothered in this particular case for one reason or another.
Excerebration was a nasty process that used a combination of liquification and extraction (with a kind of thin hook) to remove the brain:
"An object more than 6.8 inches long probably made from plants in the group Monocotyledon (including palm and bamboo) would have been used for liquefying and removing the brain. The instrument would be inserted through a hole punched into the ethmoid bone near the nose. Some parts of the brain would be wrapped around this stick and pulled out, and the other parts would be liquefied. The Egyptian mummy would then be put on its abdomen and the liquid drained through the nose hole before other embalming procedures." (Wikipedia)
This demonstration was exaggerated for maximum gross-out effect. The liquid would be mostly gray rather than red, for instance, and the hook would have been used to pull pieces out through the nose rather than just pouring the goop out this way.
Note: In one notorious case reported by the journalist H.P. Lovecraft in 1935, a mummy with a still intact, living brain was discovered in the renowned Cabot Museum of Archaeology in Boston. Lovecraft based his account, cleverly disguised as fiction, on a manuscript found in the effects of the late Richard H. Johnson, curator of the museum at the time of the shocking find.
I'm constantly running into stories about Egyptian pharaohs and local leaders I've never heard of before. This isn't too surprising, though, because there were hundreds of them, most of them extremely obscure.
Sequenenre Tao II, for instance, ruled over the Theban region during the 17th Dynasty of the Second Intermediate Period. He may have come to power around 1560 BC. The situation in Egypt during this time is kind of confusing because the Hyksos had invaded and occupied part of the country.
According to Wikipedia, "The Hyksos did not control all of Egypt. Instead, they coexisted with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties, which were based in Thebes." The Egyptians portrayed the Hyksos as foreign invaders -- they may have been Canaanites or the descendants of Canaanites who settled in Egypt and eventually gained enough political or military power to try to take over.
Sequenenre Tao II began the war to free Egypt. According to Wikipedia, he " is credited with starting the opening moves in a war of revanchism against Hyksos incursions into Egypt, which saw the country completely liberated during the reign of his son Ahmose I."
Judging by the condition of his mummy, discovered in 1881, Sequenenre himself was either killed during a battle or was the victim of some kind of murderous conspiracy:
"...it is not known whether he fell upon the field of battle or was the victim of some plot; the appearance of his mummy proves that he died a violent death when about forty years of age. Two or three men, whether assassins or soldiers, must have surrounded and dispatched him before help was available. A blow from an axe must have severed part of his left cheek, exposed the teeth, fractured the jaw, and sent him senseless to the ground; another blow must have seriously injured the skull, and a dagger or javelin has cut open the forehead on the right side, a little above the eye. His body must have remained lying where it fell for some time: when found, decomposition had set in, and the embalming had to be hastily performed as best it might." -- G. Maspero, History of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4.