A group of researchers say that the so-called “screaming mother,” famous for her moving face, probably died in extreme pain. This discovery adds credence to the theory that the mummy was first discovered over a hundred years ago.
A trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art found this mummy in 1935 in a wooden box under the tomb of Senmut in Deir Elbahari, a site of ancient Thebes. The embalmed woman was wearing a black wig and gold and silver bracelets, but what was most interesting was her appearance, with her mouth hanging open and her jaw set.
In 2020, analysis of a 3,000-year-old mother by Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem found that an ancient Egyptian woman died of a heart attack; Sadly, the team concluded that her suffering was not due to the embalming, which earned her the nickname “screaming mother.” In the research context, the specimen is known as “Unknown Woman A.”
Now, a paper published in Frontiers in Medicine confirms the findings, bringing back doubts as to whether this woman really died in such tragic circumstances.
“In ancient Egypt, embalmers took care of the corpse to make it look good after death,” explained Saleem, a radiologist at Cairo University and lead author of the study, in an email to Gizmodo. “That’s why they liked to close the mouth of the dead by tying the jaws to the head to prevent the normal postmortem jaw collapse.”
“We found out that the body that was buried was in a very good state of embalming and there is a remnant of expensive embalming materials in his body,” added Saleem. “This has canceled the process of immersing the bodies to be careless and the promoters just neglected to keep his mouth shut..”
Instead, Saleem’s team says, the woman may have suffered a cadaveric spasm, a rare form of muscle stiffness in a specific part of the body shortly before death. Muscles can contract for up to 36 hours; a recent research team suggests that the person may have been embalmed before the tissues had a chance to relax, preserving his face when he died. The team notes that this situation may have prevented the perfumers from covering his mouth the way he used to do.
As reported by Gizmodo in 2020, researchers believe the woman may have suffered a heart attack, which led to her death. A 2013 study on The Lancet found that 34% of corpses from that time showed evidence of cardiovascular disease. By comparison, one in five deaths by 2022 can be attributed to some form of heart disease, according to the CDC.
“The scientific investigation of resins and other embalming materials in this study is useful and the authors’ methods are novel and detailed,” said Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and lead author of the global HORUS Study, an in-depth look at heart disease in ancient cultures, in an email to Gizmodo.
“Regarding the meaning of the open mouth, the authors discuss this well, but they do not have direct evidence for this mother to support their opinion or to refute other possibilities,” Thompson, who was not involved in the youth. read, added. “I believe they are right, though. Their explanation makes sense.”
That said, Thompson told Gizmodo in 2020 that “museum curators and anthropologists sometimes tell an entire story about a mother from a small piece of objective data — and no one can argue with them.”
Saleem’s team backed up their previous findings by highlighting that the embalmers took good care of the deceased and completed the job at a reasonable cost. An analysis of the woman’s skin revealed that it was covered with essential oils of frankincense and juniper, her natural hair was dyed with henna and juniper, and even her wig was coated with quartz and crystals. In other words, his mouth doesn’t look like it had gaps because the promoters were lazy.
However, not everyone agrees. “With death, the body’s muscles relax, often causing the mouth to open slightly,” said Gregory Thomas, a cardiologist at UC Irvine who was not involved in the recent work and co-leader of the HORUS project, in an email to Gizmodo. “To properly represent the deceased after death, today’s promoters who may have been ancient, closed their mouths if they were open when they received the deceased. Therefore, the most likely cause of the appearance of CIT8 screeching [screaming] mother that her mouth was not closed during the embalming process.”
“Cadaveric spasm is a process that is still poorly understood as it is rare and only occurs in research settings. So further forensic studies may be required,” added Saleem. “Furthermore, further studies of corpses with screaming faces could shed more light on this phenomenon.”
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