After years of various mysteries surrounding the life of the world’s first known pregnant mummy, archaeologists have uncovered another clue as to what happened to the so-called “Mysterious Lady,” revealing that she likely died of nasopharyngeal cancer.
Polish archaeologists in the Warsaw Mummy Project They found a lesion, approximately 7 millimeters in diameter, around the mummy’s eye socket, which they say was probably due to a tumor, along with several cavities in the skull.
“We thought it was the damage caused by the guys who did the mummification process, but when I looked closer I saw that there were not many bones behind the orbit (socket) and in the mouthpiece cavity”, archaeologist and co-director from the center of Warsaw. Mummy Project (WMP), Marzena Ozarek-Szilke told CTVNews.ca in a Zoom interview on Tuesday.
Ozarek-Szilke said they were able to make a 3D print of the mummy’s skull using CT scans and a virtual autopsy they had originally performed to discover a fetus inside the mummy. The woman was between 20 and 30 years old when she died and her cancer was probably metastatic as the disease had spread to the right eye socket.
While several mummies have been found to have cancer in the past, the study authors say their findings are rare since scientists were able to examine the mummy’s soft tissue.
“Cases with preserved soft tissues are less common,” archaeologist Wojciech Ejsmond and WMP co-director told CTVNews.ca in a Zoom interview on Tuesday.
“Usually what we have are bone changes, marks that indicate a person had cancer, and here we have one of those rare cases where we can actually look at the soft tissue. But we still need to do additional histopathological investigation to fully confirm our case and determine the exact nature of the cancer.”
The archaeologists have already started working with oncologists and medical professors in Warsaw, as they theorize their discovery could aid in cancer research.
“We would like to compare the old cases with the modern ones so that you can really check… how the cancer was progressing. So you can find a clue or reason for the origin of the disease and how to prevent it and how to cure it,” Ejsmond said.
MORE MYSTERIES AHEAD
Nicknamed the “Mysterious Lady” for baffling archaeologists for years, this discovery is one of the few known details of the mummy’s life, as the mummy was originally found in a coffin belonging to a priest named Hor-Djehuty, who lived in Thebes in the first century BC.
“This mummy surprised us three times,” Ozarek-Szilke said. She explained how archaeologists originally thought the mummy was a man, but upon further investigation found that not only was she a woman, but she was also pregnant.
WMP archaeologists initially speculated that the mummy lived in the first millennium, but as their research continues, they say it could have lived before 1000 BC. The relationship between her and the priest is unknown, but it is possible that it was placed in her coffin due to 19th-century looters who often sold mummies and coffins separately.
Archaeologists are currently working on facial reconstruction in hopes of getting an idea of what the mummy might have looked like. Ejsmond says the goal of his research is to humanize the “Mysterious Lady” in the hope that others can relate to the lives the mummies once lived.
“We are all afraid of dying, especially from cancer, which is one of the most common causes of death and the fact that she was pregnant makes this very tragic and very relatable for all of us,” he said.
“But also, his death could help future generations try to fight cancer.”