Эрдэмтэд орчин үеийн дүрс оношилгооны аргуудыг ашиглан эртний Египетийн элит эмэгтэйн мумийн нүүрний хувирлын шалтгааныг тодруулав.
1935 онд Теб хотын ойролцоогоос олдсон энэхүү муми нь 18-р династийн үед амьдарч байсан бөгөөд “Хашгирч буй эмэгтэй” хэмээн алдаршжээ. Өмнө нь түүний амыг ангайсан байдал нь занданшуулах үйл явцын алдаа гэж үзэж байсан ч, оршуулгын чанар болон ашигласан үнэт материалууд нь энэ таамаглалыг үгүйсгэв. Түүний биеийг үнэт давирхай, үнэрт бодисоор бүрж, тусгайлан зассан хиймэл үс зүүлгэсэн нь түүнийг өндөр зиндааны хүн байсныг нотолж байна.
2024 онд Каирын их сургуулийн радиологич Сахар Салим болон Египетийн Аялал жуулчлал, эртний олдворын яамны судлаач Самиа Эл-Мергани нар мумиг рентген болон компьютерийн томограф (CT), электрон микроскоп зэрэг дэвшилтэт аргаар нарийвчлан шинжилжээ. Шинжилгээгээр тус эмэгтэйг 48 орчим настай, 150 см орчим өндөртэй байсныг тогтоосон ч нас барсан шалтгааныг нь нарийн тодорхойлох боломжгүй хэвээр үлдэв. Түүний дотор эрхтнүүд занданшуулах ёслолын дагуу авагдаагүй байсан нь уг оршуулгын онцлог шинжүүдийн нэг болж байна.
Судалгааны багийнхан “Frontiers in Medicine” сэтгүүлд нийтэлснээр, мумийн нүүрний хувирал нь “кадаверийн спазм” буюу үхлийн агшинд булчингууд гэнэт чангарч хөших үзэгдэлтэй холбоотой байж болзошгүй гэж үзжээ. Энэхүү ховор үзэгдэл нь ихэвчлэн хүчтэй өвдөлт эсвэл айдас түгшүүрийн улмаас тохиолддог байна. Хэдийгээр тухайн эмэгтэйн эцсийн мөчид юу тохиолдсоныг зүрхний шигдээс, цус харвалт эсвэл могойд хазуулах зэрэг олон таамаглалаар тайлбарлах боломжтой ч, одоогоор үүнийг батлах бодит нотолгоо хараахан алга байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
The mummy of an elite Egyptian woman buried more than three millennia ago still appears to be screaming, her mouth frozen wide open beneath the linen wrappings. Scientists who recently re-examined her with modern imaging tools believe the answer lies not in a mummification error, but in a rare and little-understood muscular reaction that can occur at the exact moment of death.
The mummy, nicknamed the “Screaming Woman,” was unearthed in 1935 in Thebes, buried near the tomb of Senmut, the royal architect who served Queen Hatshepsut during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. For decades, her contorted expression was chalked up to sloppy embalming. But when the researchers dug deeper into the quality of her burial, the explanation the had started to fall apart.
A Burial Built for the Elite, Not a Botched Job
Against the evidence, the theory of a rushed or careless mummification does not hold up. According to Popular Mechanics, the woman’s body, wrappings, and elaborate wig were coated in imported frankincense and juniper resin, both costly materials reserved for high-status burials, with the frankincense reportedly having traveled from the kingdom of Punt, a region prized for exporting gold and aromatic resins, carried back by servants working for Hatshepsut herself.
Beyond the resins, her wig points to considerable expense and craftsmanship as well. Rather than human hair, it was made from date palm fibers dyed with rare reddish henna and dusted with a fine mixture of quartz, magnetite, and albite.
Such details make clear this was not a burial handled with indifference. Only one puzzle remained about the embalming itself: her internal organs were never removed, dried, and placed in canopic jars, the customary practice for the era, and no incision explaining this was ever found.
What Scanners Revealed?
In 2024, mummy radiologist Sahar Saleem of Cairo University, working alongside Samia El-Merghani of Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, examined the mummy through a range of non-invasive methods, moving from X-rays and CT scans to scanning electron microscopy, which images surface detail at high resolution, and on to Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis, both of which probe molecular and crystalline structure. But, even with this battery of techniques, the exact cause of death still could not be determined.
What the scans did establish, even without a cause of death, was a rough picture of who she had been. For the study team, it was a woman of about five feet tall, which was roughly average for her time, who died somewhere around age 48, her teeth and joints already showing signs of wear. Because her arms lay at her sides rather than crossed over her chest, a pose reserved strictly for royalty. The scans also confirmed that, however elite her burial, she had not been born into the royal line.
A Painful Death Preserved for Three Millennia
Researchers now point to a cadaveric spasm as the likely explanation for her expression, a rare phenomenon in which certain muscles lock into place at the instant of death, typically triggered by extreme pain or panic. Unlike rigor mortis, which gradually stiffens the entire body, a cadaveric spasm affects only specific muscles and does so immediately. In the study, published in Frontiers in Medicine, the researchers wrote that:
“The mummy’s screaming facial expression in this study could be read as a cadaveric spasm, implying that the woman died screaming from agony or pain.”
What actually caused that final moment of agony remains unexplained. A heart attack, stroke, ruptured aneurysm, or even a venomous snakebite have all been floated as possibilities, though no bite marks were found.
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