Secrets of the Pharaohs: Part 3 - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Secrets of the Pharaohs: Unwrapping the Mummy	February 26, 2001
by Anglea M.H. Schuster

First aired February 27, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2

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Mummy of Asru, who was chantress of Amun three millennia ago (Courtesy PBS)

Disease, drugs, sex, and death are the topics on offer in this last episode of Nova's three-part series, Secrets of the Pharaohs, which features the detailed examination of the 3,000-year-old mummy of Asru, who was a chantress at the temple of Amun at Karnak ca. 1000 B.C. There is, however, no unwrapping as the episode's title suggests. Asru had been stripped of her bandages in the early nineteenth century, shortly before she was donated to the Manchester Museum in 1825. That she lacks the layers of linen makes the extracting of tissue far easier.

While Asru may have lived the good life by ancient Egyptian standards, it was a painful one, according to the team of pathologists, led by Egyptologist Rosalie David of the Manchester Museum. The first half of the episode is devoted to the analysis of X-ray images and tissues extracted from the mummy and the identification and description of the many ailments that plagued her.

Disease
Evidence of guinea worm is detected in her intestines. The disease would have caused severe diarrhea and intestinal bleeding, resulting in anemia. The chantress likely had difficulty breathing; her lungs scarred by the inhalation of sand. Thought to be well over 50 at the time of her death, Asru suffered painful septic arthritis in her hands and osteoarthritis in her back. The latter was complicated by a fractured vertebra and a herniated disk. And if that were not enough, say our pathologists, she also suffered from shistosomiasis, aka Bilharzia, evident the X-ray images which show clear calcification of her bladder wall. Diagnosis of Bilharzia, which is caused by a flatworm that breeds in freshwater snails, is confirmed by the analysis of bladder tissue and the presence of antibodies for the disease that were isolated and identified by a team of pathologists in Cairo.

Drugs
What, if anything, did Asru do to alleviate her pain? Did she take drugs for it or simply bear it in silence? If narcotics were used, traces of them should be found in her hair. There is a slight problem, however. As a chantress, Asru was shaved to maintain ritual purity, making it difficult for researchers to find enough hair to conduct toxicological analyses. Several hairs were recovered from her scalp, which revealed only henna, used to give her head and remaining hair a red color; other body hair revealed only traces of plant remains. Could plants have been ingested, sniffed, or otherwise used to relieve pain?

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Asru undergoes examination. (Courtesy PBS)

The question sends researchers Vic Garner and Dave Counsell on a quest to analyze the plants most widely used by the ancient Egyptians, including the blue lotus, which is shown in many tomb paintings being added to wine. Our team consults botanists at the British botanical garden at Kew, where they collect blue lotus samples both ancient, from the tomb of Rameses II and from the Greco-Roman cemetery at Hawara, and modern, growing in the garden's waterlily pond. After much analysis, it is determined that the blue lotus possesses the same properties as Ginkgo biloba, being an antioxidant and bloodflow stimulant. While the plant would have offered a certain overall sense of wellbeing, it did not necessarily eliminate pain. So why was it so popular, and so often depicted on tomb paintings? The answer--taken over time, it seems, the flower would have acted as a natural viagra, a sexual stimulant.

Sex
According to Danish Egyptologist Lise Manniche, the sexual-stimulating properties of the blue lotus are documented in a papyrus found at Deir el-Medina, the village of where the builders and artisans responsible for the tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived. Depicted in the document are two women--one confronted by a man with a large phallus, the other sitting on a phallic stool--each with a blue lotus painted above her head. But what role did the flower play in the funerary rites depicted in the tombs?

Death
The connection, says Manniche, maybe that sex was the key not only to earthly rebirth, but rebirth in the afterlife.

Like the other two episodes in this triptych, Unwrapping the Mummy, is concise and well thought out. It explains in detail the manner in which each analysis is undertaken and why. Discussions such as that of Bilharzia are accompanied by scenes by modern scientists attempting to control such diseases in modern populations. That one mummy, Asru, could yield so much evidence on ancient disease is simply remarkable.

Anglea M.H. Schuster is Senior Editor of ARCHAEOLOGY.

Secrets of the Pharaohs is a three-part series. Part 1: Tut's Family Curse aired February 13, 2001. Part 2: Lost City of the Pyramids aired February 20, 2001. To purchase ($49.98 for the series, $19.98 for individual videos), call 1-800-336-1917. The companion book, Private Lives of the Pharaohs, can be ordered at the same number for $25.00. At http://www.pbs.org you can find more information about the series, a timeline, maps, and links to Egyptology sites.

See also our reviews of Tut's Family Curse and Lost City of the Pyramids.