Researchers were surprised to discover a second fetus inside a 2,000-year-old mummy over 100 years after archeologists found it (2024)

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Researchers were surprised to discover a second fetus inside a 2,000-year-old mummy over 100 years after archeologists found it? ›

Researchers performed CT scans on a mummified Egyptian woman and found evidence of a second fetus. The fetus was in her chest cavity and seemed to be the twin of the fetus buried with the woman. Though women often die in childbirth, mummified fetuses are almost unheard of.

Recent analysis of an Ancient Egyptian mummy held at the Smithsonian Institution for over a century yielded a surprise: an almost fully-developed fetus inside the mummy's chest cavity.

Abstract. Radiological examination of an ancient mummy said to have been found in royal tombs in Thebes, Upper Egypt, has proved it is the body of a pregnant woman. She came from the elite of Theban community and was carefully mummified, wrapped in fabrics, and equipped with a rich set of amulets.

Now, researchers spot it. A pregnant mummy may have kept a secret for thousands of years — one that went undiscovered by ancient embalmers and 20th century archaeologists. But now, upon re-examining the mummy, researchers revealed she had been carrying a second, hidden fetus, according to a study published on Dec.

An ancient Egyptian mummy with a fetus tucked between its legs and another lodged inside the chest cavity — the first known of its kind — shows the mother died while giving birth to twins.

Researchers performed CT scans on a mummified Egyptian woman and found evidence of a second fetus. The fetus was in her chest cavity and seemed to be the twin of the fetus buried with the woman. Though women often die in childbirth, mummified fetuses are almost unheard of.

Before this discovery, the oldest known deliberate mummy was a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BC. The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 at the Cueva de las Momias in Argentina.

One of the earliest written records of a urine-based pregnancy test can be found in an ancient Egyptian document. A papyrus described a test in which a woman who might be pregnant could urinate on wheat and barley seeds over the course of several days: “If the barley grows, it means a male child.

Now, a team of ancient DNA specialists has successfully sequenced genomes from 90 ancient Egyptian mummies. The game-changing results give scientists their first insight into the genetics of ordinary ancient Egyptians—which changed surprisingly little through centuries of conquests.

The Oldest Methods

Around 1850 B.C. Egyptian women mixed acacia leaves with honey or used animal dung to make vagin*l suppositories to prevent pregnancy. The Greeks in the 4th century B.C. used natural ointments made with olive and cedar oil as spermicides.

Who is the youngest mummy found? ›

Discovered more than a century ago the tiny mummy is the youngest Egyptian ever embalmed as a mummy on record. The tiny mummy is of a human fetus who likely died at only 16 to 18 weeks of gestation, likely from a miscarriage.

The papyrus document suggests a woman urinate on wheat and barley seeds. If the wheat sprouted, a female child was on its way, the ancients decreed, and if the barley sprouted, a male child would soon arrive. No sprouts meant no child was expected.

They left only the heart in place, believing it to be the center of a person's being and intelligence. The other organs were preserved separately, with the stomach, liver, lungs, and intestines placed in special boxes or jars today called canopic jars.

According to Diodorus, the Egyptians had made a law permitting brothers and sisters to marry, just as the Egyptian deities Osiris and Isis had done. This, allegedly, was why the pharaohs married their sisters.

What happened if a mother had twins? The one-child policy was generally accepted to mean one birth per family, meaning if women gave birth to two or more children at the same time, they would not be penalised.

Twin Sisters tells the moving true story of Mia and Alexandra, twin Chinese infants found in a cardboard box and taken to an orphanage in 2003. Two sets of hopeful parents — from Norway, and Sacramento, California — arrived in China to claim the babies but by a twist of fate, the adopting parents also met each other.

According to new research by the Warsaw Mummy Project, the preservation occurred via the acidification of the woman's body as she decomposed. As the researchers so colorfully put it, the process is akin to pickling an egg. "The fetus remained in the untouched uterus and began to, let say, 'pickle'.

They left only the heart in place, believing it to be the center of a person's being and intelligence. The other organs were preserved separately, with the stomach, liver, lungs, and intestines placed in special boxes or jars today called canopic jars.

Although The Mummy (1999) teems with suspense and anticipation, it is embellished with false facts and distorts the ancient Egyptian culture to captivate the viewers.

Filming. Principal photography began on May 4, 1998, and lasted 17 weeks. The crew was unable to shoot in Egypt due to unstable political conditions, so filming began in Marrakech, Morocco. Marrakech had the extra advantage of being much less modern than Cairo, making it easier to dress like the 1920s.