r/history Jan 24 '23

CT scans of a fully-wrapped, 2,300-year-old Egyptian mummy reveal the body of a teenage boy — adorned with 49 amulets, garlanded with ferns, and fitted with sandals Article

https://blog.frontiersin.org/2023/01/24/golden-boy-mummy-was-protected-by-49-precious-amulets-ct-scans-reveal
4.5k Upvotes

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u/marketrent Jan 24 '23

Findings in title quoted from the linked summary1 about a journal article2 published 24 Jan. 2023.

From the linked summary1 by Frontiers science writer Mischa Dijkstra:

The ’Golden boy’ mummy had been found in 1916 at a cemetery used between approximately 332 and 30 BCE in Nag el-Hassay in southern Egypt.

It was stored unexamined in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo until the present study.

The mummy was laid inside two coffins, an outer coffin with a Greek inscription and an inner wooden sarcophagus. Within, he wore a gilded head mask, a pectoral cartonnage that covered the front of the torso, and a pair of sandals.

Apart from the heart, the viscera had been removed through an incision, while the brain had been removed through the nose and replaced with resin.

 

“Here we show that this mummy’s body was extensively decorated with 49 amulets, beautifully stylized in a unique arrangement of three columns between the folds of the wrappings and inside the mummy’s body cavity.

“These include the Eye of Horus, the scarab, the akhet amulet of the horizon, the placenta, the Knot of Isis, and others. Many were made of gold, while some were made of semiprecious stones, fired clay, or faience.

“Their purpose was to protect the body and give it vitality in the afterlife,” said Dr Sahar Saleem, the study’s first author and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Cairo University, Egypt.

Ferns were garlanded around the mummy’s outer surface. “Ancient Egyptians were fascinated by plants and flowers and believed they possessed sacred and symbolic effects.”

“The sandals were probably meant to enable the boy to walk out of the coffin. According to the ancient Egyptians’ ritual Book of The Dead, the deceased had to wear white sandals to be pious and clean before reciting its verses,” said Saleem.

1 ‘Golden boy’ mummy was protected by 49 precious amulets, CT scans reveal, 24 Jan. 2023, https://blog.frontiersin.org/2023/01/24/golden-boy-mummy-was-protected-by-49-precious-amulets-ct-scans-reveal/

2 Saleem S., et al. Scanning and three-dimensional-printing using computed tomography of the “Golden Boy” mummy. Frontiers in Medicine, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2022.1028377

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u/ImpendingSingularity Jan 24 '23

It took them 105 years to start study on it? Seems excessive.

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u/631-AT Jan 24 '23

As I understand there were so many mummies in Egypt that they were used for paint pigment and rented out for people to unwrap as a party activity. It’s easy to imagine that there would be hundreds or even thousands of upper class, but not royal mummies that aren’t that pressing to go rummaging around with.

Another thing is this is a Ptolemaic mummy, meaning the pyramids were as ancient to this kid as he is to us. Just guessing but there may be a lot more mummies of similar status from that time due to the kingdom holding a lot of economic power and being fairly metropolitan

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u/supersecretaqua Jan 24 '23

the pyramids were as ancient to this kid as he is to us.

That shit always hits me harder than a lot of other time comparisons, feels more profound to me personally than many of the big time gaps or reference points

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u/dinosaur-boner Jan 25 '23

At some of the pyramids such as Saqqara, which makes Giza look positively modern, there’s even the world’s oldest graffiti, the equivalent of “X was here” for an ancient Egyptian. As exotic as some of these ruins may seem for us, it’s easy to forget it would’ve been even more amazing for ancient peoples whose worlds were smaller and for whom travel would’ve been more arduous and dangerous.

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u/Lord_of_the_Canals Jan 25 '23

Agreed, I think it puts into perspective the sheer rocket climb of technological progress we’ve made in the past 100 years vs the past 4-5000.

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u/theeighthlion Jan 25 '23

"throw another mummy onto the fire, dear"

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u/dinosaur-boner Jan 25 '23

It was sadly common practice to grind them up as fertilizer too.

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u/AdAcademic4290 Jan 26 '23

A lot were ground up for fertiliser, some were used in medicine. Btw, the paint made from ground up mummies was called 'mummy brown '.

Mummies were sold by weight.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '23

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u/Bentresh Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 24 '23

It’s not uncommon; there’s an enormous backlog of material in museums that needs to be studied and published. For example, the French institute in Egypt (the IFAO) has thousands of unpublished ostraca in its collections.

Egyptian archaeologists have long prioritized the excavation of new sites over the study of previously excavated artifacts.

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u/banuk_sickness_eater Jan 25 '23

Damn that's just lazy at this point. Lay em all out, program a drone to do a careful fly over taking high res pictures/scans, then just have an AI analyze them.

For the institute dedicated to the preservation of these works you'd think devising at least some means of automating the digitization and analysis of these precious histories would be somewhere on the docket.

Think of all the lost works we know were popular and highly cited that might be amoungst what has essentially sat as glorified ubbish heap stuffed in the back of some dusty French closet 100 years.

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u/bringbackswordduels Jan 24 '23

“I’ll start get started on it tomorrow”

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u/MelodicCampaign4314 Jan 24 '23

Tomorrow-ish…but it WILL get done!

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u/amonarre3 Jan 24 '23

They did this 2 years ago?

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u/EntityDamage Jan 24 '23

That hyperextended knee lock gives me anxiety.

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u/Disastrous-Spell-135 Jan 24 '23

Yeah, that can’t be good for his cartilage in the long run

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u/mrgonzalez Jan 24 '23

He'll be feeling that in the afterlife

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u/youdubdub Jan 24 '23

He could be headed for some serious strife.

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u/Garyshartz Jan 24 '23

I acknowledge your Squirrel Nut Zippers reference as it deserved acknowledgment.

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u/youdubdub Jan 24 '23

As you good and goddamned well better (;

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u/hedge_raven Jan 24 '23

It's in my head now, not mad about it.

...Now you make the scene all day
But tomorrow there'll be Hell to pay

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u/jitty Jan 24 '23

Definitely not any serious strafe.

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u/MarioInOntario Jan 24 '23

Definitely hasn’t been doing the witch-recommended stretching in that coffin and it shows, smh

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u/EntityDamage Jan 24 '23

Well I heard if you lock your knees you'll pass out, so...

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u/jitty Jan 24 '23

Not for a short run either!

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u/Harsimaja Jan 25 '23

Imagine the knee crack he could do by now

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u/eyoung_nd2004 Jan 24 '23

The Golden Boy’s face restored…he was not a handsome boy

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u/Angdrambor Jan 24 '23

I get the impression they used the wrong images with some of these. Or maybe the author has a very different idea of what "restored" means.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '23 edited Feb 06 '23

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u/Traitor_Donald_Trump Jan 24 '23

Waiting an eternity to find out he’s too old to trick or treat. :-(

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u/Excusemytootie Jan 24 '23

The inbreeding probably didn’t help.

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u/dkbobby Jan 24 '23

did they really need to point that arrow at his schlong

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u/ISLAndBreezESTeve10 Jan 24 '23

That is the Dong Amulet.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '23 edited Feb 16 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '23

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

It’s pointing to the amulet in the penis, of a golden flask.

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u/taynesflarhgunnstow Jan 24 '23

They also measured his penis, which is odd.

"Two-dimensional and three-dimensional CT images of the pelvic regions showed a well-preserved penis measuring 41 mm in length wrapped in a linen sheath."

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u/TheOneManLegend Jan 24 '23

Courteous of them to say 41mm and not 1.6 inches

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u/taynesflarhgunnstow Jan 25 '23

"I was in the pool Nile!"

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u/Book_of_Numbers Jan 25 '23

It shrinks??

Like a frightened turtle!!

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 25 '23

Well, they’d measure everything, really. Even the desiccated penis.

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u/Buttoshi Jan 24 '23

Also how did they know it was uncircumcised?

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

It’s exactly hard to know whether a penis is circumcised or not when you can see it.

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u/Teomalan Jan 25 '23

It still has the extra skin that would be cut off during circumcision

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u/Doctor_Sauce Jan 24 '23

I like wearing chains, usually 2 or 3. 49 amulets is absolutely baller- the Egyptian Mr. T.

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u/Smelliestelm Jan 24 '23

Incredible, must have been loved by his family

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u/_far-seeker_ Jan 24 '23

Or the amulets are meant to keep... something contained. 😉

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u/tinycole2971 Jan 25 '23

Teenagers are terrible, I could see this.

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u/clementinesncupcakes Jan 24 '23

That red bit in the back of his skull— is that where the blood had settled?

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u/thebroward Jan 24 '23

I think that’s resin - after they remove the brain through the nose.

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u/Victor1stofhisname Jan 24 '23

How do they remove the brain through the nose? Looking at the brain’s size, that seems almost impossible.

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u/Noxeecheck Jan 24 '23

They pushed some thin metal tool inside the skull through the nose and basically shred the brain and then drain it out.

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u/BiHGamer Jan 24 '23

Impressive. But why do they scoop the brain out ? What do they do after with it ?

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u/Noxeecheck Jan 24 '23

Important part of the embalming process is removing all organs from the body to prevent decomposition. In Egypt, they removed all the organs including brain and put them into jars that were placed near the mummy.

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u/datahoarderx2018 Jan 26 '23

Isn’t skin also an organ?

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u/hedge_raven Jan 24 '23

I think important organs, including the brain, were stored in ceremonial type jars nearby the body. The why, well, spiritual beliefs mainly. This is based on my very limited knowledge, but I'm pretty sure that's the short version of an answer.

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u/Excusemytootie Jan 24 '23

I don’t think that the brain was considered to be an “important organ”. It may have been but I recall reading that it wasn’t high on the list.

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u/wellwouldyalookitdat Jan 25 '23

I know this because of The Mummy movie. Organs stored in canopic jars.

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u/Victor1stofhisname Jan 25 '23

Interesting. Thanks for explaining

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u/clementinesncupcakes Jan 27 '23

I remember reading about the brain through the nose thing back when we learned about Egyptian history in elementary/ middle school, but I had conveniently tucked that fact away so I never had to picture it again.

Thanks for reminding me! I hate it ❤️

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u/thebroward Jan 27 '23

Yeah, the ancient embalmers had a specialized tool to scrape every bit of brain matter, through the nostrils, to the point that even in the medical community find the tool quite astonishing - quite advanced for its time…

Also, apparently it was taboo for ancient pharaohs to pick their nose, so they had a special tool to remove dry boogers, too. :)

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

It’s interesting to see how many amulets were placed on his body.

But I have one strange question: the team who analysed this mummy say it’s a male subadult. Cause of death could not be determined. Teeth and bone show he was healthy, no anomalies, arrested growth or malformation. Bone fusion gives estimated age as 14 to 15. Well, that all makes sense for a likely wealthy boy.

Except his height:

“Mummy digital unwrapping using CT has replaced invasive physical examination and dissection in the past. CT digital unwrapping offers non-invasive results about the mummy’s age, sex, health issues, as well as mummification style (6). The CT images in this study show a well-preserved male mummy with a preserved penis. In the sagittal reconstructed CT image, the mummy is for a juvenile with a height of 127.7 cm. A CT scan can accurately estimate the age of a subadult mummy by detecting developmental changes such as erupted teeth and epiphyseal closure (5, 17). CT images show that all permanent teeth have erupted except the third molar teeth, indicating a death age between 12 and 18 years. The skeleton epiphyseal union of the mummy estimated the age at death to be 14–15 years.”

I’m a dentist, so I can understand assuming older than 10 is very reasonable for a juvenile who has shed all the deciduous teeth. However, his height isn’t. The mummy has a height of 127,7 cm, which unless he has shrunken severely, that’s not a height of an adolescent - my son was that height before age 7, and most kids are around 8 are over 130 cm. By 14, you’d except a boy to be no shorter than 150 cm, and the average height for ancient Egyptians wasn’t much shorter than it is today.

I just had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a 14 year old shorter than an 8 year old.

Anyone could explain that? Mummies don’t have their bones shrunk, do they?

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u/GreenEyedCat Jan 24 '23

Growth hormone deficiency?

Without hormone treatment Lionel Messi’s adult height wouldn’t have been more than 4’7, (he’s currently about 5’7)

this kid could just never have been big and then never got big in puberty and died before he gained anymore mass height

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u/Grammareyetwitch Jan 24 '23

I think nutrition plays a role in reaching your genetic potential for height. Maybe there was something about his life that kept him from eating enough or digesting his food? If the intestines and internal organs are removed for mummificaton, maybe there's missing evidence along that line.

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u/marr133 Jan 24 '23

Very much so. I had neighbors who had grown up quite malnourished in their native country, and were both under 5 feet tall. Their kids, however, had been born and raised in Minnesota, ate well, and were both over 6 feet tall as adults. Add in a childhood disease or two that stunts growth, and 4 feet isn’t all that weird. I’ve traveled in some developing countries and encountered quite a few anomalously tiny adults for what are likely similar reasons, and the East African refugee community where I live now has some similar examples.

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

The article mentions they found no evidence of growth arrest or that the boy was unhealthy.

Besides, mummification was quite an elite practice due to its cost. It’s unlikely this boy has ever suffered through hunger.

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u/Useful-ldiot Jan 24 '23

I figured the 49 gold and jeweled amulets said that he was probably never hungry lol

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

While that’s not impossible, such nutritional growth arrest or delay would be able to be observed in the bones, and the CT didn’t show any evidence of those.

“ Sacralized fifth lumbar vertebra. No CT evidence of skeletal anomalies, bony malformation, or growth arrest lines.”

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u/Grammareyetwitch Jan 24 '23

Ok, good point. 👍

I'm always surprised by how much you can learn about someone when you don't have much besides bones.

I wonder if they have extracted the DNA. He could have been merely short, but I have to wonder why he died so young and healthy. Especially since he's out of early childhood and less likely to die of illnesses, some parents were probably heartbroken. No wonder he has so many amulets.

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

Could have some disease that doesn’t live a mark on the bones, malaria is probably the single most cause of death of young people in human history. But I think you’d find some evidence of the parasite in remaining tissue (don’t quote me that). Or an infection, or trauma that would cause bleeding but not break bones. Humans are fragile, and without more modern medicine it was rough.

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u/amazingwhat Jan 24 '23

I mean, isnt it generally accepted fact that, on average, people were much shorter in the past? Maybe his height is normal for a teenage boy of high social standing in that era and thats why the article doesn't note it? But wow. That is really really short, maybe he was pre-pubescent?

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u/LupusDeusMagnus Jan 24 '23

In the past people were shorter, yes, but not by that much, and it was mostly on average and due to nutrition, which wouldn’t affect a wealthy boy that much. If I recall correctly, ancient Egyptian males had an average height of about 166 cm, meanwhile today Egyptian male are around 170 cm (not that Egyptians are particularly at the peak of their potential growth nowadays, being a mostly poor country).

Even for a prepubescent boy the discrepancy would be extremely notable. Again, he’d stand not taller than an eight year old.

For comparison, he’d be shorter than the average Baka adolescent male (one of the peoples known as “pygmies” though the term is considered offensive).

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u/Useful-ldiot Jan 24 '23

He's 7 inches shorter than a kid in the bottom 1% as a modern 14 year old.

Something has to be wrong here. That's REALLY small.

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u/LimpCroissant Jan 24 '23

I would think that a mummy of a person would be shorter than the person living considering the material between the joints deteriorating and all that.

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u/RichHeadNewsDotCom Jan 24 '23

Looks like the amulets didn’t help protect him from excavation.

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u/Brainchild110 Jan 24 '23

Are his thighs meant to bend like that?

Surely his thighs should not bend like that. Dude could use them as boomerangs.

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u/zekethelizard Jan 24 '23

What freaks me out is the air-fluid (or air-sediment) level in his head. Not unexpected, just.... 😳

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u/No-Mushroom-5357 Jan 25 '23

This is my ancestor 🙏🏾❤️‍🔥♐️♾️ Peace and blessings Asé

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u/smalldick11 Jan 25 '23

They did just assume it’s gender? I’m literally shaking rn

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u/smalldick11 Jan 25 '23

They did just assume it’s gender? I’m literally shaking rn

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u/CassetteApe Jan 24 '23

Do we have any idea who the kid was? Someone important?

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u/nexos187 Jan 25 '23

Where got this scanned at? Japan? The company I work for installed a „mummy“ CT scanner there … would be sweet to know if it was scanned on our equipment

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u/Nevertrumper1978 Jan 25 '23

I wonder how he stayed so still for the CT scan? Those things make me anxious and I tend to move a little due to nervousness.