mummies

Life reconstruction of Edmontosaurus. Credit: Natee Puttapipat, CC-BY 4.0Data from fossils and modern carcasses indicates a simple path to preserving dinosaur skin.Dinosaur “mummies” aren’t as exceptional as we might expect. That’s because of a relatively simple process of desiccation (drying out) and deflation, according to a study by Stephanie Drumheller of the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and colleagues that was published on October 12, 2022, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.The term “mummy” is often used to…

Juvenile Lystrosaurus murrayi skeleton with enveloping layer interpreted as mummified skin. Photo: Courtesy Roger SmithIt was a time of catastrophic change. Most of life on Earth had been wiped out, global temperatures had increased dramatically, and the weather raged in extremes. That anything survived in this hostile environment is remarkable, and yet, some plants and animals persisted. One such survivor was Lystrosaurus, a four-legged herbivore with a beaked snout and two pointy tusk-like teeth. And now, over 250…

Researchers recently used CT scans to peer inside three mummies from South America, and they discovered evidence suggesting that two of the individuals were murdered. Warning: This article contains photos of one of the bodies that may be disturbing. The mummies date to between 900 CE and 1300 CE and are from Peru and Chile; two are male and one is female. Though the female appears to have died from natural causes, CT scans of the male mummies revealed that they were likely fatally bludgeoned and stabbed. The team’s…

One secret of the past that can be revealed through the study of skulls and skeletons is how frequent violence was amongst our ancestors.However, with their preserved soft tissues, mummified remains can be an even more telling indicator than bones alone.That brings us to a new analysis of three pre-Columbian South American mummies, carried out with 3D computed tomography (3D CT) scans that use X-rays to view the internal state of the remains without having to open them up.The research reveals that two out of these three…

The Marburg male mummy – macroscopic views of the whole mummy. Credit: A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich How frequent was violence in prehistoric human societies? One way to measure this is to look for trauma in prehistoric human remains. For example, a recent review of pre-Columbian remains found evidence of trauma from violence in 21% of males. So far, most…

Egypt is famous for its gargantuan pyramids and the ancient mummies that are buried there. The ancient process of mummification to preserve a body has long fascinated people all over the world. Researchers have now been able to reconstruct the faces of three men who lived in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago. Based on the DNA data extracted from their mummified remains, the researchers have created 3D models of the mummies' faces that show how they would have appeared at the age of 25 years.The mummies are from the ancient…

Archaeologists excavate ancient bones and vessels from a previous Inca culture that were discovered by city workers digging a natural gas line in the Brena neighborhood of Lima, Peru, Feb. 11, 2020. About 300 archaeological finds, some 2,000 years old, have been reported over the past decade during the building of thousands of kilometers (miles) of natural gas pipelines in the capital. Credit: AP Photo/Martin Mejia, File…

Why did people think cannibalism was good for their health? The answer offers a glimpse into the zaniest crannies of European history, at a time when Europeans were obsessed with Egyptian mummies.  Driven first by the belief that ground-up and tinctured human remains could cure anything from bubonic plague to a headache, and then by the macabre ideas Victorian people had about after-dinner entertainment, the bandaged corpses of ancient Egyptians were the subject of fascination from the Middle Ages to the 19th…

Credit: Wikimedia Why did people think cannibalism was good for their health? The answer offers a glimpse into the zaniest crannies of European history, at a time when Europeans were obsessed with Egyptian mummies. …

Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed yet another enormous collection of rare artefacts from the Saqqara Necropolis, a thriving site near Cairo that is likely still hiding mysteries. They were the most recent in a long line of discoveries in the area. On Monday, archaeologists disclosed a stockpile of ornately decorated coffins or sarcophagi, which were still sealed with their owners mummified inside, along with a number of bronze statuettes. Saqqara, a massive necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis — a…