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Hawk mummy is actually human baby


Kenemet

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Micro-CT scans determined a 'hawk mummy' at Maidstone Museum UK is in fact a stillborn male human with severe congenital abnormalities that include a malformed skull and vertebrae. An international team's unprecedented analysis was led by bioarchaeologist and mummy expert Andrew Nelson of Western University, Canada. 

A tiny Egyptian mummy long believed to be that of a hawk is actually a rare example of a near-to-term, severely malformed fetus, says an examination led by mummy expert Andrew Nelson of Western University. 

Detailed micro-CT scans have virtually unwrapped the mummy to reveal what would have been a family tragedy even two millennia ago: a male, stillborn at 23 to 28 weeks of gestation, and with a rare condition called anencephaly in which the brain and skull fail to develop properly. 

http://mediarelations.uwo.ca/2018/05/31/micro-ct-scans-show-2100-year-old-hawk-mummy-stillborn-baby/

Dates to Hellenic Egypt (around the time of Cleopatra), so the situation is not a purely Egyptian one.  The source is unknown, but the wrappings indicate a very high status family.  I don't think it's royal, but nobody knows for sure.

This LiveScience article about the mummy mentions the implication that fetuses were sometimes used in magic https://www.livescience.com/62705-hawk-mummy-was-human.html

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2 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

Bury it, bury it now.

Greetings Sir Wearer,

One must always be cautious of casting "modern" perceptions/standards upon past cultures and practices. The rather obvious preservation efforts suggest an appreciable level of care and reverence associated with the cultural component involved. And this under a presumably stressful situation. One must then ponder intent. One must then further appreciate the knowledge and understandings that can be derived from the rather meticulous practices involved. Again, intent.

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2 hours ago, Swede said:

Greetings Sir Wearer,

One must always be cautious of casting "modern" perceptions/standards upon past cultures and practices. The rather obvious preservation efforts suggest an appreciable level of care and reverence associated with the cultural component involved. And this under a presumably stressful situation. One must then ponder intent. One must then further appreciate the knowledge and understandings that can be derived from the rather meticulous practices involved. Again, intent.

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I don’t give two hoots about how people in the past treated dead children, we bloody well treat them with respect. 

Bury them, don’t gaupe at the like some scientific specimen. The corpse was meant to be interred for all time, so bloody well inter it again.

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19 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

I don’t give two hoots about how people in the past treated dead children, we bloody well treat them with respect. 

Bury them, don’t gaupe at the like some scientific specimen. The corpse was meant to be interred for all time, so bloody well inter it again.

Thus illustrating my point.

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45 minutes ago, Swede said:

Thus illustrating my point.

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What point is that? That we shouldn’t project our culture onto older ones? Well dur.

Im holding us to our culture. I’m asking that we show what we call respect to a respected body.

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23 hours ago, Sir Wearer of Hats said:

What point is that? That we shouldn’t project our culture onto older ones? Well dur.

Im holding us to our culture. I’m asking that we show what we call respect to a respected body.

Noted. Given the jurisdiction, it would be interesting to follow the eventual disposition of the recently re-classified remains.

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Fascinating stuff. Good find, Kenemet. I enjoyed the video in the article. It continues to delight me what advances in medical imaging can do for Egyptology. It's a reminder that even if a child died at birth or pre-term in ancient Egypt, it might be afforded a reverent burial. But Kenemet is right, this was probably the child of an upper-class family: a regular farmer's or laborer's family couldn't afford to have their child mummified.

We have a tiny mummified stillbirth in our exhibit. Unfortunately it's never been CT scanned or even X-rayed (as far as I know), so we don't know much about it. Not even its gender. But it's carefully wrapped and evidently well preserved to this day, so this little baby's family loved it.

Sir Hats, your displeasure reminds me of an encounter one of my older docent friends had at our museum many years ago, long before I came on board. My friend, Evelyn, has been a docent at our museum for almost 40 years. She's one of my favorite people there. I just saw her today.

Anyway, one afternoon many years ago, Evelyn was standing by one of the large mummies cases, and at that time the only other person in the room was an elderly woman. She was looking intently at the mummies. Evelyn turned to this woman and asked, "May I answer any questions for you?"

The woman replied, "Not really, but shouldn't these mummies be taken out and given a good Christian burial?" :lol: :lol:

Evelyn has the best stories.

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I read the other link in Kenemet's OP, and it too was interesting. Imagine, throwing a fetus at your victim will freeze him so you can carry out your crime!

But here's a lick. There's a link in this second article called "Photos: The Amazing Mummies of Peru and Egypt," a museum exhibit with the credited venue of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The thing is, this is our mummy exhibit from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Granted, it's traveled all over the country and has been highly successful. It's at the Field Museum right now and I work in it every weekend. I am quite well acquainted with all of the mummies in the link's photos. They are all proprty of the Field Museum.

But if you open the second link in the OP and look at the very top photo, you can see why they assumed for so many years that it was a falcon mummy. We have falcon mummies in our own exhibit that resemble that.

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