What set the screaming woman apart from typical mummification was that all her organs were still inside her body, unlike the traditional method of removing the internal organs, which was quite surprising to scientists.
It was initially thought that careless embalming had accidentally left its mouth open. But now a new scientific analysis has provided a different answer. According to Sahar Saleem, a researcher at Cairo University, it’s a condition called “cadaveric spasm.”
A rare form of muscular rigidity that occurs at the time of death in cases of violent or extremely stressful death. This means that the person dies screaming in agony.
Saleem and his co-author, Dr. Samia El-Merghani, describe in a journal article published in Frontiers in Medicine how they “virtually dissected” the mummy using computed tomography (CT) scanning technology and X-ray diffraction analysis, examining its skin, hair and long black wig.
According to The Guardian, the team estimates that the mummy is well preserved and that the woman was around 1.55 meters tall when she was alive.
CT scans provided further information, revealing that he died at around 48 years of age and had mild arthritis, including in his spine.
