The secrets of some Egyptian mummies have been revealed in France, much to the surprise of hardcore historians, who didn’t expect the findings. The scientific revelations were made at the University of Strasbourg in the quaint region of Alsace.
The academic institution acquired five Egyptian mummies which are thousands of years old in an attempt to understand them better. The mummies were of cats, ibises, falcons and fish and went under the lights at the archaeology laboratory.
The artifacts were x-rayed in an attempt to see if there were “any animals inside and in what condition” they might be. Cassandre Hartenstein, in charge of the project and an Egyptologist at Strasbourg University, added that the mummies have “never been studied before”.
Meanwhile, Frederic Colin, curator of the Egyptian collection at the University of Strasbourg, admitted that “not all the mummies found contain whole animals, or even any animals at all”, and that all they know about them so far is “based on the descriptions in the inventories at the time they were acquired”, which was about a hundred years ago.
Upon completing the first stage of their rigorous research, it was revealed that one of the cat mummies and the falcon mummy was in an excellent state of preservation, and that, strangely, “their necks have been broken”.
Colin gave his views on the findings, saying “from my point of view, it’s when the animal is not whole that it’s most interesting. The other cat mummy reveals only a pelvis, spine and an unusually positioned bone, similar to a small femur”.
Professor Colin said despite the secrets being unveiled, there was more research to do: “The aim now is to understand the gestures of the embalmers and the mummification processes of the animals based on their condition.
“The most exciting part is yet to come”, agreed Cassandre Hartenstein, who said that “in the coming weeks, we’re going to date the mummies precisely using carbon 14 and probably take DNA samples.”
