The elegantly carved 2,500-year-old coffin was thought to be empty and never opened. Scientists have yet to identify the mummy from ancient Egypt but say the coffin offers up some important clues.
Image: Reuters/C. Packham
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Scientists in Australia have discovered the remains of a mummy in a 2,500-year-old coffin that was previously classified as empty.
The coffin, acquired by the University of Sydney 150 years ago, was left untouched in its Nicholson Museum and was never studied.
But when researchers removed the lid to the coffin late last year, they discovered the tattered remains of a mummy.
The 2,500-year old coffin was never studied at the University of Sydney museumImage: Reuters/C. Packham
"The records previously said the coffin was empty or with debris...There is a lot more to it than previously thought," said Jamie Fraser, the lead investigator and senior curator at the museum.
The sarcophagus was one of four ancient and intricately designed Egyptian coffins — three of them with full-bodied mummies — acquired around 1860 by Charles Nicholson, a former chancellor of Sydney University.
Coffin's original occupant
Fraser said initial study shows the remains are of a single human, an adult probably around the age of 30.
Hieroglyphs show the original occupant of the coffin that dates back to 600 BC was a priestess called Mer-Neith-it-es. Egypt was then ruled by native Egyptians.
"We know from the hieroglyphs that Mer-Neith-it-es worked in the Temple of Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess," Fraser said.
"There are some clues in hieroglyphs and the way the mummification has been done and the style of the coffin that tell us about how this Temple of Sekhmet may have worked," he said.
Detailed computed tomography (CT) scans and a laser scan for 3D modeling purposes were finished last week.
The examination has so far been able to locate several bones, bandages, resin fragments, and more than 7,000 glass beads from a funeral shawl.
Famous mummies and their histories
After a mummy is discovered, rumors often fly regarding its origin and cause of death. Sometimes it is even thought to be an alien find! Here are some famous mummies and the histories behind them and their discoveries.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/EURAC/V. J. Musi
Ata
Are these the remains of an alien? That's what many people wondered after this mummy was found in the Chilean Atacama desert in 2003. A documentary was produced on the possible extraterrestrial find. But the remains were identified as a human. Researchers believe the 15-centimeter (6-inch) long figure was probably a prematurely born fetus with various bone and cranial deformities.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Bhattacharya S et al./COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY
Tutankhamun
In 1922 British archeologist Howard Carter discovered the mummy of pharaoh Tutankhamun in an almost untouched tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Experts speculated for decades whether or not the child king had been murdered. Finally, in 2005, a tomographic computer analysis using wave penetration, similar to a CAT scan, proved that he had died from injuries sustained while he hunting.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/epa/AP/B. Curtis
Rosalia Lombardo
Rosalia, considered the world's most beautiful mummy, has been resting in a Catholic Capuchin tomb in Palermo, Italy, for almost 100 years. She died of the Spanish flu shortly before her second birthday. The little girl seems to be simply sleeping. It's not known how her embalmer managed to preserve her so well. All that's known is that Alfredo Salafia used formaldehyde.
Palermo not only houses the world's most beautiful mummy but also a rather eerie collection of skeletons: The remains of rich people buried in their cloths can be found in the Capuchin cloister's catacombs. In roughly 1600, the religious order's friars discovered that the corpses had only partially decomposed. The friars then arranged them along the walls, where they can now be viewed by tourists.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Brix
Ötzi
In 1991 a couple from Nuremberg discovered a glacier mummy while hiking in the Alps around the valley of Ötz, hence the name "Ötzi." In 2000 researchers tried to clarify the cause of death of this Neolithic man, whose remains had been naturally preserved by extreme cold temperatures. The man is thought to have died between 3359 and 3105 B.C. from an arrow attack.
Image: AP
Scythian warriors
In 2003 an international research team discovered mummies of Scythian warriors in Mongolia. They are only half as old as Ötzi. These Indo-European nomads lived in the vast steppes of Eurasia. This mummy, preserved by ice, was dressed in groundhog fur and wore felt boots.
This bog man, discovered by a peat digger in Neu Versen in 1900, remains the most famous example of a total of 60 bog men that have been discovered in Lower Saxony to date. Over the course of 1,700 years, substances contained in the bog colored the mummy's hair red, hence the nickname "Red Franz." The bog's soil acids preserved his body.
Image: cc-by-Axel Hindemith
The child mummy of Detmold
Although this mummy of a baby was found in Peru, it has been named after the Lippisches Landesmuseum in Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia, which received it for conservation purposes in 1987. The baby, which died of a heart defect, is one of the world's oldest mummies: at around 6,500 years old, it's even older than Tutankhamun and Ötzi.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Thissen
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Rare research opportunity
The mummy was "heavily disturbed" and likely robbed for jewels and amulets by tomb raiders.
The discovery offers scientists a rare opportunity to test the corpse that could help unlock mysteries around ancient Egypt.
"We can start asking some intimate questions that those bones will hold around pathology, about diet, about diseases, about the lifestyle of that person how they lived and died," Fraser said.
Whole mummies offer few scientific benefits as they are typically left intact.
