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Scientists analysing ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies have discovered they overwhelmingly share genes with people from Europe and not Africa, as previously believed. The first ever full-genome study of mummies dating from 1400 BC to 400 AD found that the ancient Egyptians were closely related to populations in the Levant – now modern day Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel.Daily Mail reports: They were also genetically similar to Neolithic populations from the Anatolian Peninsula and Europe. In plain English, Egyptians were related to Persians, Rome and Greece whom were all white European people.The groundbreaking study used recent advances in DNA...

Egypt 'starts work on mummifying shark that devoured Russian tourist so it can be displayed in a MUSEUM after removing victim's head, chest and arms from the predator's stomach' Vladimir Popov, 23, was mauled to death by a tiger shark at Egyptian resort It comes after a 68-year-old was killed by shark at a nearby resort last year Egypt has started work on mummifying the shark that devoured a Russian tourist so that it can be displayed that it can be displayed at a museum, according to a report. The body parts of Vladimir Popov, 23, who was eaten alive...

Scientists may soon get glimpse of mummy's face 6/26/2005, 5:49 p.m. ET The Associated Press NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. (AP) — Pesed has called a western Pennsylvania college home for about 120 years, but her caretakers don't know what she looks like. But that might change now that researchers have a CT scan of the 2,300-year-old Egyptian mummy. Officials believe the scan will provide enough information to allow a forensic artist to construct a bust of Pesed, a mummy from the Nile River town of Akhmim, about 350 miles south of Cairo. Pesed has been the property of Westminster College, located...

Excavation work carried out by an American mission from New York University at the temple of Ramses II in Abydos has stumbled upon a menagerie of mummified animals that provides previously undocumented evidence of cultic worship through the ages.The most significant find at the site is over 2,000 mummified heads of rams from the Ptolemaic period along with other mummified ewes, dogs, wild goats, cows, gazelles and mongooses, said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.The mummified remains, some still in their linen wrappings, were found stored in one of the recently discovered magazines within the temple’s northern...

Egyptologists have uncovered a Pharaonic tomb near the capital Cairo containing what may be the oldest and "most complete" mummy yet to be discovered in the country, the excavation team leader said on Thursday (Jan 26. The 4,300-year-old mummy was found at the bottom of a 15-metre shaft in a recently uncovered group of fifth and sixth dynasty tombs near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, director of the team, told reporters. The mummy, of a man named Hekashepes, was in a limestone sarcophagus that had been sealed in mortar.

A prominent Egyptologist has boldly claimed to have solved one archaeology’s greatest mysteries: the location of Queen Nefertiti’s mummified remains. Zahi Hawass, the previous Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs in Egypt, is part of the Egypt-led team that undertook a high-profile excavation in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings that allegedly uncovered amulets once owned by King Tut. The team announced last December that they had also unearthed several unnamed mummies, one of which Hawass believes is the famed ruler. “We already have DNA from the 18th dynasty mummies, from Akhenaten to Amenhotep II or III, and there are two...

664 B.C. Egyptian Mummy Finally Gets a Face Scientists at the FAPAB Research Center in Italy have unveiled the forensic facial reconstruction of a young woman who lived in Thebes, Egypt in the early 26th dynasty. The mummy of the young woman arrived in Switzerland as early as 1820 and has been the star among mummies in the country ever since. The forensic reconstruction on the skull was made in multiple phases following the Manchester method, the gold standard of available forensic methods. According to the published paper, once the mummy’s skull was digitized, the team reconstructed the soft tissue...

A team of experts has found a mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old on Peru's central coast, one of the archaeologists who participated in the excavation said on Friday. The mummified remains were of a person from the culture that developed between the coast and mountains of the South American country. The mummy, whose gender was not identified, was discovered in the Lima region, said archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna. "The main characteristic of the mummy is that the whole body was tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face, which would be part...

Fires from incendiary bombs burned the cake to a crisp.. A 79-year-old nutcake lies on a table in the workshop of the Department of Archaeology for the Hanseatic City of Lübeck Historic Monuments Protection Authority. (Image credit: dpa picture alliance/Alamy Live News) Archaeologists in Germany are salivating over a hazelnut-and-almond cake that was baked 79 years ago and was recently dug up in a cellar in the German town of Lübeck — as a blackened, mummy-like relic. Though the charred delicacy hasn't been edible for a very, very long time, it's still recognizable as a cake, representatives of the Hanseatic...

The faces of three ancient Egyptian men who lived up to 2,797 years ago have been reconstructed using genetic data extracted from their mummified remains. It is the first time such a technique has been used on human DNA of that age. The trio came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient city on a floodplain to the south of Cairo, and are estimated to have been buried some time between 780 BC and 5 AD.... ...'This is the first time comprehensive DNA phenotyping has been performed on human DNA of this age,' Parabon said in a statement. The firm's experts found...

In the nearly 200 years since his mummy’s arrival at the Leeds City Museum in northern England, an ancient Egyptian priest named Nesyamun has slowly but surely revealed his secrets.Employed as a high-ranking priest and scribe at the Karnak state temple in Thebes, Nesyamun performed rituals filled with both song and speech. Active during the turbulent reign of Ramses XI, who served as Egypt’s pharaoh between 1099 and 1069 B.C., he died in his mid-50s, likely due to a severe allergic reaction, and suffered from ailments including gum disease and heavily worn teeth. And, as evidenced by inscriptions on his...

It's possible the "mud wrap" was used to stabilize the mummy after it was damaged, but the mud may have also been meant to emulate practices used by society's elite, who were sometimes mummified with imported resin-based materials during a nearly 350-year period, from the late New Kingdom to the 21st Dynasty (about 1294 BCE to 945 BCE), the researchers said... The mud sheath isn't the mummy's only oddity. The mummy, dated to about 1207 BCE, was damaged after death, and was even interred in the wrong coffin actually meant for a woman who died more recently, the researchers found......

Ancient embalmers likely placed the tongue-shaped, gold foil amulet in the deceased’s mouth to ensure they could speak in the afterlifeArchaeologists conducting excavations at the temple of Taposiris Magna in western Alexandria, Egypt, have unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy with a gold tongue. As Nihal Samir reports for Daily News Egypt, researchers from a dual Egyptian-Dominican mission discovered the golden-tongued mummy while surveying 16 poorly preserved burials encased in rock-cut crypts—a popular form of interment during Egypt’s Greco-Roman period. Crafted out of gold foil, the tongue-shaped amulet was likely placed in the deceased’s mouth to ensure they’d be able to speak...

The archaeologists, led by Kathleen Martinez, from the Dominican Republic, discovered the mummy in one of 16 burials at Taposiris Magna, which has temples dedicated to Osiris and Isis, a goddess who was both the wife and sister of Osiris. Previously, archaeologists found a hoard of coins decorated with the face of Cleopatra VII, suggesting the temples were in use during the queen’s reign. The other 15 burials also date back around 2,000 years and contain remarkable treasure. In one, a female mummy is wearing a death mask that covers much of her body and depicts her with a headdress...

In Yukon, Canada, a perfectly preserved wolf puppy, hidden away for 57,000 years in permafrost and identified by researchers as “the oldest, most complete wolf,” has been discovered in Yukon, Canada. At the Klondike goldfields, near Dawson City, a miner had seen something in the frozen mud wall, and he had to blast through it to get to it to see what it was. He found a creature that was named the Zhùr by the local Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation people.

An actual ancient gold earring which can be seen depicted in some of the so called Fayum Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt has been discovered in Southeast Bulgaria by archaeologists excavating the Ancient Roman colony Deultum near the town of Debelt, Burgas District, close to the Black Sea coast. Deultum was a Roman colony, which according to Roman law signified a status equal to that of the city of Rome itself. In today's Bulgaria, there are only three Roman cities which enjoyed this status - Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium) near Burgas, Ratiaria (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria) near Archar, Ulpia...

The bizarre burial was found in KV11 of the Valley of the Kings, where the second Pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty of ancient Egypt - Ramses III - was laid to rest with his royal family. Thought to have reigned from 1186BC to 1155BC, Ramses III is considered to have been the last great monarch of the New Kingdom to wield any substantial authority over Egypt. His long reign saw the decline of Egyptian political and economic power, linked to a series of invasions and internal economic problems that also plagued pharaohs before him. But he was able to save...

A girl's name, mysteriously called 'Mummy', has been discovered in a large cryptoportico in a new dig at Pompeii, director Massimo Osanna told ANSA Monday. The discovery, just to the north of the Roman city, is part of a large and refined complex dating back to the time of the Emperor Augustus, he said. The complex will be uncovered and eventually opened to visitors, Osanna said. He also vowed to bring to light the recently discovered 'villa of the harnessed horse'.

A 17th dynasty anthropoid coffin containing a mummy, along with a mud-brick offering chapel and a pile of mixed materials from funerary equipment, have been unearthed by a Spanish-Egyptian archaeological mission in Draa Abul Naga necropolis on Luxor's West Bank. The director of the mission, José Galán, explained that these objects were unearthed during excavation work carried out in the area located in front of the open courtyard of Djehuty's tomb (TT 11). The coffin was carefully placed on the ground horizontally. It measures 1.75 by 0.33m, and was carved in wood cut from a single sycamore tree trunk, then...

Scientists hail it as perhaps the best-preserved dinosaur specimen ever uncovered. You can’t even see its bones. That’s because, 110 million years later, those bones remain covered by the creature’s intact skin and armor.