Mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I unpacked for the first time (digitally)

And then the pharaoh turns out to look surprisingly much like his father and was dug up 300 years after his death for really well-intentioned repair work.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, quite a few mummies were excavated in Egypt. And almost all of them have been ‘unpacked’ over the years for follow-up research. Almost all. Because the mummy of Amenhotep I actually did not dare to reveal to researchers. The pharaoh is perfectly wrapped and beautifully decorated with flower garlands. In addition, on the head and neck of the mummy is a beautiful and lifelike face mask that is carefully inlaid with stones. And the fear of disturbing or even damaging the bandages and the mask always trumped the curiosity about what might be hidden underneath.

Digitally unpacked

Fortunately, one (the curiosity) no longer has to be at the expense of the other (the mummy) in 2021. And in the sheet Frontiers in Medicine Scientists today announce that they finally know what lies beneath the canvases. They unpacked the mummy ‘digitally’.

The scans reveal what lies beneath the cloths and face mask. Image: S. Saleem & Z. Hawass.

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To this end, the researchers made a 3D CT scan of the mummy. “By digitally extracting the mummy and virtually removing its layers—the face mask, the cloths, and thus the mummy itself—we were able to study the well-preserved pharaoh in unparalleled detail,” said study researcher Sahar Saleem.

It provides a wealth of information about Amenhotep I, who ruled Egypt in the sixteenth century BC. For example, based on the CT scans, the pharaoh appears to have been about 35 years old at the time of death. He was about six feet tall and had good teeth. In addition, the researchers show that the pharaoh was circumcised and outwardly resembled his father. “He had a narrow chin, a small, narrow nose, curly hair and a slight overbite.” Some 30 amulets were found among the cloths surrounding the pharaoh’s body. “And a unique golden belt with golden stones.”

Cause of death is unknown

It remains unclear how Amenhotep I died. “We couldn’t find any injuries or disease-induced deformities,” Saleem said. Furthermore, the scans reveal that the pharaoh’s entrails were removed after his death. “Except for his brain and heart.”

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It is remarkable that researchers have been able to take a look – albeit digitally – at Amenhotep I. The last time the mummy was opened was about 3,000 years ago. At that time, it was common for priests to exhume deceased pharaohs to repair damage to the mummies caused by grave robbers. And the mummy of Amenhotep I was also dug up a few centuries after the death of the pharaoh and taken care of. “The fact that the mummy of Amenhotep I has never been unwrapped in recent history presents us with a unique opportunity: not only can we study how he was originally mummified and buried, but we can also trace how he was recovered the second time, some centuries after his death, was treated and buried by the chief priests of Amun,” explains Saleem.

Previously, it was suspected by Saleem and her colleague Zahi Hawass that the restoration work carried out by the high priests, while appearing very noble, was not. Saleem and Hawass thought that the chief priests used the repair work mainly to get their hands on materials that had been used for royal burials centuries earlier. Those materials would have been pushed back during the work and reused during the mummification of later pharaohs. But the mummy of Amenhotep I tells a different story. “We show that at least before Amenhotep I, the priests of the 21st Dynasty lovingly repaired the damage suffered by tomb robbers and restored his mummy to its former glory, leaving the great jewels and amulets in place.”