Amenophis I: What the Pharaoh reveals in the X-ray machine

Egyptian researchers have digitally revealed the mummy of Pharaoh Amenhotep I using computed tomography. In the process, some puzzles were solved – such as what the king looked like. But one secret remains to be revealed.

When the Pharaoh has a doctor’s appointment, even professors make house calls. “I packed my mobile CT machine and drove to the Egyptian Museum,” says the radiology professor at Cairo University, Sahar Saleem. The pharaoh, i.e. his mummy, was brought into the museum garden. That was convenient – it only had to be carried a few meters. “I then set up my CT machine in the garden and the mummy was x-rayed.”

After less than half an hour, Pharaoh Amenophis I made it and was allowed to return to his place in the museum. For Sahar Saleem, the work started now. He put together the several thousand small layers, planes in which the mummy was x-rayed by computer tomography, digitally – in 3D. “So we virtually literally unwrapped the mummy and got an exact picture of what the king looked like. He had an oval face with a narrow chin and an overbite – he looked very much like his father, who is lying as a mummy in the Museum of Luxor. It was nice to discover these family resemblances. “

Pharaoh died relatively young

Amenhotep I, also called Amenhotep, ruled about 1500 years before Christ. The young man led several campaigns during his reign. Why the Pharaoh died relatively early at around 35 years of age remains a mystery despite the investigation.

“It was interesting to see that the Pharaoh had no evidence of illness or injuries. We know that the Pharaoh was not part of the battles and wars himself, but there are always indications of other mummies that the Pharaoh had broken bones had or had infections. Kings were not spared, “says the German mummy researcher Albert Zink.

You don’t see anything like that here, so he seemed to have been relatively healthy. Infectious diseases or gastrointestinal diarrheal diseases that left no traces on the mummies or skeletons and are therefore difficult to identify as the cause of death were also typical. “The only thing that would help here would be a more detailed genetic analysis, whether you might still find a pathogen from which it died.”

Bandages untouched since the find in 1881

The mummy of Amenhotep I had already been discovered in 1881, but the bandages have not been touched by the researchers to this day. This enabled the death mask and the rich flower garlands that surround it like hair to be preserved. That is the great advantage of the digital examination, according to Professor Sahar Saleem:

The three-dimensional scans revealed, among other things, new embalming techniques that were introduced to Amenhotep. He was the first ancient Egyptian king to be embalmed with his arms crossed – as the last pharaoh, his brain was not removed. The examination gave the Pharaoh a face. Only his death will remain a mystery.

Cause of death of Ramses III. clarified

Not like with Ramses III. – In this case, the German researcher Zink was able to solve a crime about 3000 years old: “That was very exciting, because we were actually able to find out that he was murdered because his throat was cut open. The background was a harem conspiracy, in one of his wives was involved. It’s almost a stroke of luck if you can still prove something like that. ”

For the researcher, mummies remain one of the most exciting things the past has left us: One can get an immediate insight. The kings are always presented as if they were free from problems and diseases, with the best nutrition – “and when you then look at the mummies, you often see a different, perhaps the real picture. I find that very, very fascinating.”