Polish archaeologists at the Warsaw Mummy Project found a lesion, about 7 millimeters in diameter, around the mummy’s eye socket, likely left by a tumor, along with several cavities in the skull. “We thought it was damage from the children doing the mummification process, but when I looked closer I saw that there are not many bones behind the socket (receptacle) and in the nasal cavity,” archaeologist and co-director in Warsaw The Mummy Project (WMP), Marzena Ozarek-Szilke told CTVNews.ca in a Zoom interview on Tuesday. Ozarek-Szilke said they were able to make a 3D print of the mummy’s skull with CT scans and a virtual autopsy that they had originally conducted to discover a fetus inside the mummy. The woman was between 20 and 30 years old when she died and her cancer was likely to have metastasized as the disease had spread to her right eye socket. While several mummies in the past have been found to have cancer, the study authors say their findings are rare because scientists were able to examine the mummy’s soft tissue. “Cases with preserved soft tissues are less common,” WMP archaeologist and co-director Wojciech Ejsmond told CTVNews.ca Tuesday in a Zoom interview. “Usually what we have are changes in the bones, so signs that indicate a person has had cancer and here we have one of those rare cases where we can actually observe the soft tissue. But we still need to do a further, histopathological investigation to fully confirm our case and determine the exact nature of the cancer.” Archaeologists have already begun working with oncologists and medical professors in Warsaw, as they believe their discovery could help cancer research. “We would like to compare the ancient cases with the modern ones, so you can really check… how the cancer evolved. So you can find a key or a reason for the origin of the disease and how to prevent it and how to treat it,” Ejsmond said.
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Dubbed the “Mysterious Lady” for puzzling archaeologists for years, this discovery is one of the few known details of the mummy’s life as the mummy was originally found in a coffin belonging to a priest named Hor-Djehuty, who lived in Thebes the first. century BC “This mummy surprised us three times,” Ozarek-Szilke said. He explained how archaeologists initially thought the mummy was male, but upon further investigation not only discovered it was female, but also pregnant. Archaeologists at WMP initially assumed the mummy lived in the first millennium, but as their research continues, they say it may have lived earlier than 1,000 BC. The relationship between her and the priest remains unknown, but it could be possible that she was placed in his coffin due to looters during the 19th century who often sold mummies and coffins separately. Archaeologists are currently working on reconstructing the face in hopes of getting an idea of what the mummy might have looked like. Ejsmond says the goal of their research is to humanize the “Mysterious Lady” in the hope that others can relate to the lives the mummies once lived. “We all fear dying, especially from cancer, which is one of the most common causes of death, and the fact that she was pregnant makes this very tragic and very relatable for all of us,” he said. “But also, her death could be useful for us future generations to try to fight cancer.”
