Scientists have made a rare discovery inside a rare discovery.
Researchers with the Warsaw Mummy Project have been studying ancient Egyptian remains since 2015 and recently used cutting-edge computer imaging on the mummified body of what they believed was a male priest.
The body was found at Thebes, which is now the modern city of Luxor, Egypt. Scientists believe the person was alive in the 1st Century BCE.
They believed it was a male priest based on the sarcophagus the mummy was found inside.
However, new 3D scans of the body revealed a tiny foot inside the mummy’s abdomen.
A delicate skeletal structure was identified inside the mummy, leading scientists to believe the woman was between 26 and 30 weeks pregnant.
“This mummy provides new possibilities for pregnancy studies in ancient times,” the team reported. “Furthermore, this specimen sheds a light on an unresearched aspect of ancient Egyptian burial customs and interpretations of pregnancy in the context of ancient Egyptian religion.”
The team’s findings were published recently in the Journal of Archaeological Science.