After the global spectacle of the 22 mummies parade we witnessed in April, discussions about Egyptian history and the Pharaonic era evolved on social media. And after the recent discovery of a pregnant mummy in Poland, which was thought to be a male priest’s mummy, “Trendify” dove into that mummy’s story and brought the latest scoop.
According to Dr. Ekrami El-Saket, PhD in Egyptology, the pregnant mummy is currently in the Warsaw National Museum in Poland; it had been transported there in 1826.
Through CT scans, the discovering team found the woman’s precise skeleton details and breast organs visible. Having identified the mummy as female, the inscriptions on the coffin indicate to the 20th century experts to believe that the coffin belonged to a male priest named Hor-Djehuti.
It is speculated that the mummy was misplaced in the wrong coffin by antiquity dealers at some point during the 19th century, when looting and re-wrapping remains were common.
It is not the first pregnant mummy to be found, as the first is a mummy of a pregnant dwarf found in the graveyards of the pyramid builders that dates back to 4600 years, and was discovered in 2010. The purpose of mummifying the corpse with the fetus still in her uterus is that they would be resurrected together into the “other world”.
Moreover, according to Egyptology historian and researcher, Dr. Bassam Al-Shamaa, the fact that those who discovered the mummy in the first place failed to uncover if it was male or female is a clue to the incompetence in archaeology. They even believed that its name was “Hor-Djehuti”, which was not true. And that it was not the first pregnant mummy to be found.
Dr. Al-Shamaa illustrated that there was a recent discovery in 2018 of a pregnant mummy in “Themna”, a village in Palestine, that dates back 3200 years.
Dr. Al-Shamaa also explained that usually figuring out the mummy's identity happens through a few steps, either its name is written in linen scrolls buried next to the corpse, or through the oval shapes ingrained on the tomb called “Al-Khartoush” that contains hieroglyphic drawings resembling the name. Or a papyrus on top of the corpse with its name written on it.
However, Dr. Bassam added that figuring out who the mummy was during her lifetime requires long, deep and difficult research through history. The scientists would compare the inscriptions on the tomb and other translated inscriptions to identify the era of the designs on the tomb and which family it belonged to. This process is one of the most difficult processes that scientists undergo.