Who owns the oldest mummy in the world?.. The most famous pharaohs in the world.. Scientists: A 10,600-year-old mummified man in North America confirms that he is the first.. And Chile claims: The first to know about mummification.. And the Iceman “Ötzi” is the most studied
Archaeological discoveries do not stop all over the world, and mummies are one of the most prominent of these discoveries and perhaps the most studied and most indicative of the era in which they lived and died.. But who owns the oldest mummy in the world?
The most famous and best-preserved Egyptian
The word mummy is linked, in one way or another, to ancient Egyptian civilization. Ancient and modern writings and cinema have also contributed to this connection, and the large number of Egyptian mummies discovered with good mummification, which is still one of the most important signs of progress that Egypt experienced in this period, has helped to make the mind He links Egypt with mummies, but many believe that Egypt has not yet discovered the oldest mummy in the world.
The oldest Egyptian mummy discovered, found in a cemetery north of Saqqara, dates back to the time of the First Dynasty (3200 BC), specifically to the reign of King Hor-Aha, the first king of the First Dynasty.
In North America
Quoted by the Daily Mail in 2018, a number of scientists said that the oldest mummy in the world is 10,600 years old and dates back to an ancient tribe in North America.
The mummy is of a mummified man (40 years old), one of the ancestors of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone people, Native Americans who inhabited the state of Nevada.
It seems that the mummy, known as the "Spirit Cave," was buried well out of sight, with the aim of being inaccessible, but it was exhumed in 1940 to begin research into its origin.
An international team led by the University of Cambridge mapped the mummified man's genome, and the mummy was distinguished by being covered with a layer of rabbit skin and reed mats, where it was found alongside the burnt remains of three other individuals.
The researchers extracted DNA from a small bone inside the skull, which showed that the man was related to Native Americans.
It happens in Libya
In 1958, a mummy was found in the Akakus Mountains in southwest Libya. It was about 5,600 years old. This discovery sparked world interest because the history of the mummy precedes by about 1,500 years the time of mummification recorded in the ancient Egyptian civilization, whose beginnings date back to (2250 - 2750) BC. Christmas, which prompted scientists to reconsider the prevailing belief that mummification on the African continent began in Egypt, and to advance a new hypothesis suggesting that it came from one of the unknown previous civilizations that arose in the region now known as Libya over a period of 20 thousand years.
The mummy's name is "Wan Mohi Jag" or the Black Mummy. It was found by an Italian archaeological mission headed by Fabrizio Mori in 1958 during excavations in a small rock cave located in the "Chwent" valley in the "Acacus" mountain range, south of the Libyan city of "Ghat" near the Algerian border. .
This unique mummy, now preserved in the Al-Saraya Al-Hamra Museum in the capital, Tripoli, belongs to a small, dark-skinned boy, estimated to be two and a half years old. His body was carefully wrapped in the skin of an elk. It assumed the fetal position, its entrails were removed, and it was wrapped in wild herbs for the purpose of protecting it from rot and decomposition.
What surprised everyone was that radiocarbon-14 analysis at the time showed that the age of the mummy ranged between 5,400 and 5,600 years.
In 2008, a 2.25-meter-tall mummy was discovered by a joint Libyan-British archaeological mission led by the English scientist, David McGee, when the mission was carrying out research and excavation work in Ubari, the Valley of Life, on the slopes of Mount Zenkara, south of the city of Garmah in the Ubari region. It is estimated that It is seven thousand years old and is placed in the kneeling position that the Libyans practiced when burying their dead. This is the greatest evidence that the ancient Libyans were the ones who discovered the mummification of the dead. The Libyans used plant leaves such as palm fronds to complete the mummification process, in addition to natron salt, such as the mummy of Wan Hohi Jag.
Chile claims to be first
A recent study claimed that the first humans to mummify their dead were in the driest region on Earth, the Atacama Desert, currently in Chile. They began practicing mummification 7000 years ago, and developed the mummification technique about 5,000 years BC, that is, before the process of mummification. The ancient Egyptians for their dead.
The study found that mummification operations in Egypt were complex and limited to elite pharaohs, but Chile followed a more egalitarian approach to honoring the dead, according to what CNN reported.
The archaeologists who participated in the study explained that Chile hopes to obtain UNESCO approval to include these discoveries in the World Heritage Site, so that the Chilean mummies receive the attention they deserve.
The study said that mummification operations were practiced in the first stage for children and fetuses, and this may have been due to the high mortality rate of children and fetuses in the desert. Mummification begins with completely dissecting the dead person’s body, treating it, removing the internal organs, and then drying the body. The mummy is also stuffed with clay and herbs.
Bernardo Arreaza, a physical anthropologist in the study, said that Chile may not have been culturally advanced, but they had rituals involved in preparing the dead.
Ötzi the Iceman...the most studied
Otzi, the Iceman, or the Iceman, are the names given to the mummy of a man that was naturally preserved in ice since the Copper Age or the end of the Neolithic Age, according to the classification of archaeologists in Europe (about 3400 BC).
It was found by the German couple Erika and Helmut Simon in 1991 by chance in a site called Hauslabuch in the Alps region, high in the Alps and on the border between Austria and Italy. The man stuffed with snow was 160 centimeters tall, weighed 50 kilograms, and died at an estimated age of about 45 years. It remained preserved for 5,300 years, and thanks to the harsh weather - and except for the shrinkage and hardening of the body over time - it miraculously retained many of its original features.
It became clear from the examination conducted in 2016 that Otzi was killed by a spear that pierced his chest from behind. The reasons for the killing are unknown and it may have been revenge and not for the purpose of theft, as the killer did not take Otzi’s copper axe, which was a valuable tool in that era.
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