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Mummy-to-be: Pregnant embalmed body identified in Poland

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Agence France-Presse

<p>Polish scientists said Thursday they have discovered the world&#x27;s first pregnant Egyptian mummy, while carrying out scans on the 2,000-year-old remains kept at the National Museum in Warsaw.</p><p>&quot;My husband Stanislaw, an Egyptian archaeologist, and I looked at the X-ray images and noticed a familiar sight for parents of three children in the belly of the dead woman -- a little foot!&quot; Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, an anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of Warsaw, told journalists.</p><p>Further analysis revealed the whole fetus and scientists working on the Warsaw Mummy Project believe the woman was between 20 and 30 years old and was 26-30 weeks pregnant.</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="pl">Jeszcze w XIX wieku <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UW</a> otrzymało nietypowe dary. Starożytne mumie. O badaniu ich bez odwijania z bandaży pisaliśmy już w 2015 roku. Teraz artykuł na ten temat został opublikowany w „The Journal of Archaeological Science&quot;.<br/>📖 <a href="https://t.co/n4TY127OK6">https://t.co/n4TY127OK6</a> <a href="https://t.co/w7t3EeTojt">https://t.co/w7t3EeTojt</a></p>— Uniwersytet Warszawski (@UniWarszawski) <a href="https://twitter.com/UniWarszawski/status/1387763670588039174?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2021</a></blockquote><div><script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script></div><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/classified-odd/04/24/21/mother-expensive-footbridge-henan-province">Mom spends $154k to build 2 footbridges to help her kid get to school safely</a></li></ul><p>&quot;We do not know why the fetus was not taken out of the belly of the deceased during mummification,&quot; said Wojciech Ejsmond from the Polish Academy of Sciences, another project participant.</p><p>&quot;That is why this mummy is truly unique. We have not been able to find any similar cases. This means that &#x27;our&#x27; mummy is the only recognized in the world with a fetus,&quot; he said.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/classified-odd/04/26/21/mind-power-turns-boiled-eggs-into-chicks-in-china-you-must-be-yolking">Mind power turns boiled eggs into chicks in China? You must be yolking</a></li></ul><p>Ozarek-Szilke speculated that there may have been an effort to &quot;camouflage the pregnancy... or, perhaps, it had some significance related to beliefs and re-birth in the afterlife&quot;.</p><p>Based on an analysis of the hieroglyphs on the sarcophagus, the mummy was originally thought to be of a male priest who lived between the first century BC and the first century AD.</p><p>Scientists now believe it could be even older than that and are looking into the possible causes of death.</p><p>The mummy has not been opened but one scan showed the woman had long curly hair down to her shoulders.</p><p>The research has been published in the latest issue of peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science.</p><p>&quot;This is the first known case of a pregnant embalmed body... It opens up new possibilities of researching pregnancy in ancient times and practices related to maternity,&quot; the article said.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/classified-odd/04/22/21/spain-set-to-approve-joint-custody-of-pets-aka-sensitive-living-beings">Spain set to approve joint custody of pets, a.k.a. ‘sensitive living beings’</a></li></ul><p>The scans were carried out by Affidea, a medical analysis company, using equipment provided by GE, both project backers.</p><p>The mummy was brought to Poland in the 19th century and became part of the antiquities collection at the University of Warsaw.</p><p>It has been kept at the National Museum since 1917, where it is on show to the public alongside the sarcophagus.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/classified-odd/04/22/21/researchers-name-newly-discovered-bug-species-after-twitter">Researchers name newly discovered bug species after Twitter</a></li></ul><div><strong>FROM THE ARCHIVES</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1674715" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

<p>"This is the first known case of a pregnant embalmed body," an article on the Journal of Archaeological Science said.</p>

"This is the first known case of a pregnant embalmed body," an article on the Journal of Archaeological Science said.