Researchers argue over fetus found inside Egyptian mummy

A Polish archaeological research team says it has uncovered the first case of a “pickled” fetus inside an ancient Egyptian woman.

A research paper published in January by the scientists of the Warsaw Mummy Project revealed that the body belongs to a pregnant woman who died between 20 and 30 years old. The mummy arrived in Warsaw in 1826 inside a sarcophagus. Back then, the mummy was thought to be male, as the coffin’s inscription identified it as a male priest named Hor-Djehuty, adding more mystery to the story. The female mummy may have been stolen or transferred to the priest’s sarcophagus.

The researchers believe that the woman belonged to the high-status community in the Thebes, given the good quality of the body mummification. The woman is also believed to have been between 26 and 30 weeks pregnant, and the fetus had “pickled” inside the womb.

Marzena Ożarek-Szilke, one of the researchers of the Polish team, told the Science in Poland magazine, “During the mummification process, the deceased was covered with natron, a naturally occurring sodium mixture, in order to dry the body. The fetus, however, remained in the uterus and began to ‘pickle’ in an acidic environment. The process was similar to the one thanks to which prehistoric bodies have been preserved to our time in swamps.” 

However, in a phone interview with Al-Monitor, Sahar Selim, a radiologist at Cairo University, said, “It is not possible to detect any bones through mummy examinations. Therefore, the discovery of the fetus is not certain. … What the Polish findings describe as an embryo is nothing but rolls of embalming material.”

She continued, “No anatomical configurations or bones were detected. It is not logical that the fetus bones would dissolve, and its body remains intact. Also, in the mummification process, the uterus is removed along with the bowels, otherwise the body would rot, and the mummification would be a failure.” 

Selim said that the pelvic mass could not be the fetus’s head, as the Polish study claims, because the bones of a fetus’ skull are not fused, “which means the skull would have disintegrated and collapsed” after death.

The mummification process in ancient Egypt removed the insides of the body to keep it from disintegrating, she said. “The uterus is a rich bacterial environment, which would cause the mummy to decay. This is why there was no discovery of the fetus inside the ancient Egyptian mummies,” Selim said.

In April 2021, the media was abuzz with the news of the Warsaw Mummy Project’s claim. The Polish research team defends its theory in a published paper, arguing that this phenomenon is similar to naturally mummified bodies like an eggshell that contains a lot of calcium, or human bones.

The study compared the process to placing an egg in a bowl filled with acid, which would cause the shell to dissolve, leaving the albumen and the yolk. This, according to the paper, explains the lack of bones in the fetus, since the environment in the human body is alkaline and becomes acidic after death, which causes the bones to dissolve.

The paper added that even up until the seventh month of pregnancy, the fetus’ bones are poorly mineralized, which makes them easier to dissolve than the bones of older children and adults.

Samia al-Mirghani, a professor of anthropology and former director of the Center of Research and Conservation of Antiquities, told Al-Monitor, “The reason there was a discovery of a pregnant mummy is that both the fetus and the pregnant woman died while she was giving birth … and the fetus was mummified inside her,” which was detected by a CT scan of the mummy.

She added that in Egypt, CT scans are not performed on all mummies, “but if such X-ray or CT scans are expanded, we could discover many similar mummies.” 

Mirghani confirmed that the Ministry of Antiquities is still looking into whether the mummy left Egypt legally or through smuggling.

Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian minister of antiquities, told Al-Monitor that the discovery is not the first case of a pregnant mummy, as in 2010, another pregnant mummy was discovered.

The body belonged to a dwarf dating back 4,600 years, and was discovered in the tombs of workers who built the pyramids, he told Al-Monitor.

“We discovered this mummy in the workers’ graves, and at the time it was a first. What the Polish scientists discovered is not something new to us,” Hawas added.