For 150 years, the 2500-year-old sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian priestess has been kept in the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney, Australia. All this time, scientists were sure of one thing: the sarcophagus is empty. But it was not so.
Last year, the museum curators opened the lid of the sarcophagus and were surprised to find fragments of the remains of a real mummy inside. A striking example of the fact that working in a museum can hardly be called boring.
The researchers say that when they removed the lid of the sarcophagus, they did not expect to see anything special there. Around 1860, Charles Nicholson, the former rector of the University of Sydney, acquired an ancient Egyptian artifact along with three other wooden sarcophagi (these were the ones who kept mummies inside them). But for some reason, the contents of this particular sarcophagus remained unnoticed.
A 1948 handbook stated that the sarcophagus was empty, and museum records suggested that only "pieces of rubbish" were kept in it. In fact, it turned out that they are the remains of human bones.
According to scientists, the remains of the mummy were damaged by tomb robbers looking for jewelry and valuable artifacts.
“It was just incredibly amazing fact. I have never excavated Egyptian tombs, but our discovery can be compared to that,”says archaeologist Jamie Fraser, lead researcher and curator of the Australian museum in an interview with the BBC.
Using CT and laser scanners, scientists were able to analyze the contents of the sarcophagus. Experts tried to identify the mummy, whose remains were "badly torn to pieces" and the artifact itself was looted. According to them, only 10 percent of the remains of the body rested in the sarcophagus.
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Simply put, the mummy has survived in a rather poor condition. In this regard, it is not at all surprising why the contents of the artifact were called "trash". Despite this, the researchers were able to identify several bones, bandages, traces of resin and thousands of tiny beads from the burial scarf.
At the time of his death, the man was about 30 years old, but it is not known whether he was the original "inhabitant" of the sarcophagus. Thanks to the hieroglyphs on the Egyptian artifact, scientists believe that it can be dated to 600 BC. They also point out that the sarcophagus was built for a woman named Mer-Neith-it-es. Perhaps she was a priestess.
Fraser hopes that radiocarbon analysis will show whether the person whose remains were found died in 600 BC (or so) or not.
In the future, scientists would like to find out what diseases the person whose remains were found in the sarcophagus had, the cause of death, and also learn more about the diet and lifestyle.