Category Archives: AFRICA

2,700-year-old ancient Egyptian stroke victim discovered

2,700-year-old ancient Egyptian stroke victim discovered

The recent medical inspection of the mummy in Egyptian led to a novel discovery believed to be one of, if not the earliest examples of a stroke in an Egyptian mummy.

2,700-year-old ancient Egyptian stroke victim discovered
A 2,300-year-old mummy is displayed after it was found by the Sakkara pyramids south of Cairo, May 3, 2005.

Upon examination, a research team from the Spanish National Program for Scientific Research, Technology and Innovation concluded that the mummy,  a woman between 25 and 40 years of age who died about 2,700 years ago, suffered a right cerebral stroke.

The mummy was studied both macroscopically and radiographically.

The findings, published last month in World Neurosurgery, explain that the position of the female mummy’s shoulders, head, flexed arm and inward turning of the left foot indicate she endured a stroke on the right side of her brain.

The researchers also note that a stick or a crutch remained with her in the mummification process, which they speculate she used in life following the stroke.

The earliest example of a stroke 

The researchers believe the woman lived with the aftermath of the stroke for several years. Strokes, which occur when blood supply to the brain is disrupted, are the second highest leading cause of death and disability globally.

The typical stroke patient today is at least 60 years old, decades older than the mummy is believed to have been.

Stroke (illustrative)

Ancient mummies can advance modern medicine

In another study this month that analyzed the remains of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy and found that she may have suffered from nasopharyngeal cancer, Polish researchers said that investigating mummy illnesses can significantly contribute to modern medicine.

Early Human Evolution: Hominin Fossils in “Cradle of Humankind” May Be a Million Years Older Than Thought

Early Human Evolution: Hominin Fossils in “Cradle of Humankind” May Be a Million Years Older Than Thought

Early Human Evolution: Hominin Fossils in “Cradle of Humankind” May Be a Million Years Older Than Thought
Four different Australopithecus crania were found in the Sterkfontein caves, South Africa. The Sterkfontein cave fill containing this and other Australopithecus fossils was dated to 3.4 to 3.6 million years ago, far older than previously thought. The new date overturns the long-held concept that South African Australopithecus is a younger offshoot of East African Australopithecus afarensis. Credit: Jason Heaton and Ronald Clarke, in cooperation with the Ditsong Museum of Natural History

The Famous Sterkfontein Caves deposit is 1 million years older than previously thought.

New dates for the Australopithecus-bearing Sterkfontein Cave deposit place South African hominin fossils at the centre of global paleo research.

Nearly four million years of hominin and environmental evolution are revealed by fossils found at the Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa. Research began at the site in 1936 when Robert Broom discovered the first adult hominin of the genus Australopithecus.

Since then it has become famous for the hundreds of Australopithecus fossils yielded from excavations of ancient cave infills, including iconic specimens such as the Little Foot skeleton and the cranium known as Mrs. Ples.

Ancient cave infill called ‘Member 4’ is where the majority of Sterkfontein’s wealth of Australopithecus fossils have been excavated from. In fact, it is the richest deposit of Australopithecus fossils in the world.

Over the last 56 years of University of the Witwatersrand-led research at Sterkfontein, the age of Member 4 at Sterkfontein has remained contested. Age estimates have ranged from as young as about 2 million years ago, younger than the appearance of our genus Homo, back to about 3 million years.

New research presented in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) re-evaluates the age of Australopithecus from Member 4 at Sterkfontein together with the Jacovec Cavern, which contains a few additional hominin fossils in a deeper chamber in the cave.

“The new ages range from 3.4-3.6 million years for Member 4, indicating that the Sterkfontein hominins were contemporaries of other early Australopithecus species, like Australopithecus afarensis, in east Africa,” says Professor Dominic Stratford, director of research at the caves, and one of the authors on the paper.

The new ages are based on the radioactive decay of the rare isotopes aluminium-26 and beryllium-10 in the mineral quartz.

“These radioactive isotopes, known as cosmogenic nuclides, are produced by high-energy cosmic ray reactions near the ground surface, and their radioactive decay dates when the rocks were buried in the cave when they fell in the entrance together with the fossils,” says Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in the United States and lead author on the paper.

Previous dating of Member 4 has been based on dating calcite flowstone deposits found within the cave fill, but careful observations show that the flowstone is actually younger than the cave fill and so it underestimates the age of the fossils.

“This re-assessment of the age of Sterkfontein Member 4 Australopithecus fossils has important implications for the role of South Africa on the hominin evolution stage. Younger hominins, including Paranthropus and our genus Homoappear between about 2.8 and 2 million years ago.

Based on previously suggested dates, the South African Australopithecus species were too young to be their ancestors, so it has been considered more likely that Homo and Paranthropus evolved in East Africa,” says Stratford.

The new dates show that Australopithecus existed at Sterkfontein almost a million years prior to the appearance of Paranthropus and Homo, providing more time for them to evolve here, in the Cradle of Humankind, and placing the hominins from this site front and centre in the history early human evolution.

“This important new dating work pushes the age of some of the most interesting fossils in human evolution research, and one of South Africa’s most iconic fossils, Mrs. Ples, back a million years to a time when, in east Africa, we find other iconic early hominins like Lucy,” says Stratford.

“The redating of the Australopithecus-bearing infills at the Sterkfontein Caves will undoubtedly re-ignite the debate over the diverse characteristics of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, and whether there could have been South African ancestors to later hominins,” says Granger.

For more on this research, read Fossils in the “Cradle of Humankind” May Be More Than a Million Years Older Than Thought.

Researchers Have Just Reconstructed a 2,300-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy’s Face

Researchers Have Just Reconstructed a 2,300-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy’s Face

Australian researchers have reconstructed the face of an ancient Egyptian mummy, using a 3D printer to create a replica skull and forensic sculpting techniques to bring it to life.

While the sculpture is awesome in its own right and allows us to get a glimpse into an ancient culture, the team says the reconstruction will also teach students about diagnosing pathologies in former populations.

“The idea of the project is to take this relic and, in a sense, bring her back to life by using all the new technology,” said team member Varsha Pilbrow, from the University of Melbourne.

“This way she can become much more than a fascinating object to be put on display. Through her, students will be able to learn how to diagnose pathology marked on our anatomy, and learn how whole population groups can be affected by the environments in which they live.”

The funny thing is that the mummy – which is just a wrapped head with no body – was found by accident inside the university’s collections area where a curator was performing an audit.

The team suspects the head might have been brought to the university by Frederic Wood Jones, an archaeologist turned anatomy professor, who taught there in the early 1900s.

“Her face is kept upright because it is more respectful that way,” said museum curator Ryan Jefferies. “She was once a living person, just like all the human specimens we have preserved here, and we can’t forget that.”

The decision to reconstruct the face was prompted when Jefferies grew concerned that the skull was starting to rot from the inside. This is a unique problem, because the team can’t unwrap the mummy to check if everything is okay, and risk further damaging the specimen.

Instead, they used a CT scan to see what was going on inside. “The CT scan opened up a whole lot of questions and avenues of enquiry and we realised it was a great forensic and teaching opportunity in collaborative research,” Jefferies said.

To help reconstruct the face based on what they now knew of the skull, the researchers called in a team of forensic experts from Monash University.

Based on the CT scans of the skull, the Monash team estimated that the head once belonged to a woman – who the team has named Meritamun – who likely lived around 300 BC.

There’s still a lot to learn about the exact timeframe through radiocarbon dating, though, which will hopefully get underway soon.

With the CT scans, imaging specialist Gavan Mitchell was able to use a 3D printer to create an exact replica of the skull:

With that, the team turned the skull over to Jennifer Mann, a forensic sculptor, who painstakingly reconstructed the mummy’s face using clay and all of the data gathered by the forensic team.

“It is incredible that her skull is in such good condition after all this time, and the model that Gavan produced was beautiful in its details,” Mann said. “It is really poignant work and extremely important for finally identifying these people who would otherwise have remained unknown.”

The end result was a completely reconstructed face that offers a unique way to see an ancient Egyptian:

The team’s work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, so the technique awaits proper scrutiny, though publication will likely be forthcoming after more analysis is done on the head using radiocarbon dating techniques.

Check out the video below to see the reconstruction in action:

Computer Scans Reveal King Tut’s Appearance And New Possible Cause Of Death

Computer Scans Reveal King Tut’s Appearance And New Possible Cause Of Death

The name “King Tut” gives birth to images of powerful royal families of Egypt, of course, it does. Tutankhamun was the last great king of his lineage before the military rule took over the land, and one of the youngest rulers at that. However, the way we visualize this young king is quite different from the way he really looked.

It has also been found that his cause of death is incorrect as well.

So, who was “King Tut”? How did this young king meet his demise? The truth may surprise you!

Computer Scans Reveal King Tut’s Appearance And New Possible Cause Of Death

The truth

Tutankhamun took the throne at the age of 9 years old. This child-man ruled Egypt until the age of 19, receiving respect above all in the land.

The popular consensus about his death, says that King Tut was killed in a chariot accident while riding out with his officials. This sounds like a normal incident for that day and age, but unfortunately, it is not true.

The truth is, Tutankhamun had a club foot. Within his tomb, there were countless walking sticks and even a pair of orthopaedic sandals, it is true!

Albert Zink, head of the Institute of Mummies and Icemen in Italy, had a strong opinion on this theory. He believed there was no way a child king could have stood upon that chariot and driven his horses.

It is also said that the leg on the same side had been broken previously as well. It would have been terribly uncomfortable, if not impossible, for Tutankhamun to be upon that chariot at all. It is quite apparent that death took him in some other way.

Zink told this opinion to the U.K. daily, the Independent, and was followed by other researchers who felt the same way.

“Apparently, King Tut had Koehler’s disease, ‘Death of the bones’, and Malaria”, said Ashraf Selim, an Egyptian radiologist. 

These are probably the culprits that took the young king from the throne.

More tests

The club foot was found by virtual autopsy. This same procedure of using over 2000 computerized tomography scans of the king’s face and body, also discovered that Tutankhamun wasn’t all that attractive either.

According to the evidence, King Tut had a pronounced overbite and lips like a woman. Wow! It seems that we were way off in our idea of Egyptian royalty. It seems that they were no less flawed than we are today.

One more fact

To top it off, Tutankhamun’s parents were siblings. Although this may not have been frowned upon at that time, it did contribute to the young king’s birth defects and obvious shortcomings.

Because his parents were siblings, “King Tut” was born with two doses of the royal lineage of flaws. Yes, the blood was pure, but the result was a young and weakening child to rule the land.

The rule of Tutankhamun ended in the 18th dynasty and gave way to military rule. Although there have been many facts discovered about this ruler, it is clear that his royal lineage was the greatest among Egypt’s royal families throughout history, despite its shortcomings.

Military Officer’s Tomb Discovered in Egypt

Military Officer’s Tomb Discovered in Egypt

A Czech archaeological mission working near the Giza plateau has uncovered the tomb of an ancient Egyptian military official who commanded battalions made up of foreign soldiers, according to a statement from the Egyptian antiquities ministry.

The find has led experts to conclude that ancient Egypt was much more globalised than they once thought, the ministry said. The tomb is believed to have belonged to Wahibre merry Neith, who lived between the late 26th dynasty and early 27th around 500 BC.

His tomb was found about 12km south-east of the Pyramids of Giza, very close to an embalming cache discovered in February, which also belonged to Wahibre-merry-Neith.

The main well of the tomb of an ancient Egyptian military commander named Wahibre-merry-Neith. The tomb was discovered by a Czech mission working in Giza’s Abusir necropolis.

The tomb was found by a mission from the Egyptology Department at Prague’s Charles University, one of the oldest in Europe.

The tomb is divided into separate parts by narrow bridges cut into the natural rock.

Measuring 14 metres square, its main well was about 6 metres deep. However, as is the custom in ancient burial sites from the time, there was a smaller and deeper shaft in the middle of the main well that led to the double sarcophagus where Wahibre-merry-Neith was buried.

At the bottom of the deeper well, which measures 6.5 x 3.3 metres, at a depth of about 16 metres, the mission found two sarcophagi, one inside the other.

The inner sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian dignitary, whose tomb was discovered in 2022 by a Czech archaeological mission working in Giza’s Abusir necropolis.

The outer sarcophagus is made of two large slabs of white limestone, said the ministry’s statement, while the inner coffin is made out of basalt rock and fashioned in the shape of the human body.

The upper part of the basalt sarcophagus was inscribed with excerpts from the 72nd chapter of the Egyptian Book of Dead, according to a statement from mission head Dr Marslav Barta.

The texts depict the resurrection of the deceased and his journey to the afterlife.

The basalt sarcophagus measures 2.30 metres long and 1.98 metres wide.

The sarcophagus did not contain a mummy, leading the mission to conclude that the tomb had been raided around the 4th or 5th centuries AD, Barta confirmed in a statement.

A scarab was found inside the tomb of Wahibre-merry-Neith, a 26th dynasty dignitary who commanded the country’s foreign military forces. The tomb had been robbed in the 4th or 5th century AD so the scarab was one of a handful of relics found inside the tomb

He said his team was able to approximately date the theft because of two ceramic vessels that were left behind in the main well. The upper part of the basalt sarcophagus was found smashed, said the ministry’s statement, suggesting that this was where the graverobbers entered the tomb.

Though the tomb was markedly light on artefacts, the mission was able to extract an intricately carved scarab, around 400 ushabti statues made of faience (a sintered-quartz ceramic material prevalent in ancient Egypt) and two alabaster canopic jars (containers that held the eviscerated organs of the deceased which were an important part of ancient burial customs).

Canopic jars and ceremonial cups were found inside the tomb of Wahibre-merry-Neith, a 26th dynasty ancient Egyptian military commander whose tomb was discovered in 2022 by a Czech archaeological mission working in Giza’s Abusir necropolis.

Dr Muhammad Mujahid, deputy head of the Czech Mission, said that “although the archaeological excavations of the cemetery of Wa-ip-Ra Meri Nate did not provide us with many important archaeological finds or elaborate funerary items, this cemetery is considered unique and important”.

He explained that it provides new insight into the turbulent period that marked the beginning of Persian domination over ancient Egypt.

On his part, Dr Waziri said: “The design of this well-tomb has no identical counterpart in ancient Egypt.”

The Dogon Tribe Of Africa And Their Extraterrestrial History

The Dogon Tribe Of Africa And Their Extraterrestrial History

One of the most amazing sources of evidence of our ancestors coming from the stars in the history of the Dogon Tribe of Africa. There are between 400,000 and 800,000 Dogon in a remote civilization in the central plateau region of Mali in Africa.

The Dogon culture is known for its detailed, meaningful art and tribal customs, but the Dogon are mostly known for their ancient, accurate cosmology and the legends of their ancestors from Sirius.

The Importance of the Dogon hit the western world in 1930 when French anthropologists first heard legends from the Dogon priests.

The Dogon Tribe Of Africa And Their Extraterrestrial History

The legends were passed down through many generations and documented through artwork.

The Dogon spoke of an extraterrestrial species from the Sirius Star System, referred to as the Nommos, who visited them on earth.

The Nommos were an aquatic race of humanoid creatures, similar to mermaids. This was amazing to hear because the god, Isis, of Babylon is depicted as a mermaid and associated with Sirius.

The Dogon say that the Nommos descended to earth from the heavens in a great boat,  accompanied by extreme wind and loud noise.

The Dogon explained that the Sirius system had a companion star, but it cannot be seen from the earth due to the brightness of Sirius A.

Researchers have found Dogon artefacts dating back over 400 years depicting orbits of these stars.

Years later, in 1970, astronomers finally had good enough telescopes to zoom in on Sirius and they photographed Sirius B. The Dogon were right!

They also identified the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn without the use of a telescope. How could they know this?

Being only 8 light years away, Sirius A is the Brightest Star in the Earth sky. Sirius B is an extremely heavy, dense and tiny white dwarf star, smaller than the earth, but weighing 8X more than our Sun. It is gravitationally bound to Sirius A and part of the same solar system.

White dwarfs form when a star runs out of fuel. They begin to collapse on themselves, not being large enough to supernova.

Going back for hundreds of years ever since the Nommos came to visit the Dogon, they have held a ceremony every 50 years to celebrate the orbit of Sirius A and Sirius B. Astronomers later confirmed their orbit to be almost exactly 50 years!

Check out the video for much more details.

Ancient Egyptian Mummy Shows Evidence of Nose Cancer

Ancient Egyptian Mummy Shows Evidence of Nose Cancer

The “Mysterious Lady” Pregnant Mummy and sarcophagus.

Scientists have been busy trying to find the cause of death of the “Mysterious Lady,” a 2,000-year-old ancient Egyptian mummy whose womb contained an extremely well-preserved unborn fetus. By closely studying her skull, they suspect that this ancient soon-to-be mommy likely died of cancer — a discovery that’s blown the minds of oncologists and Egyptologists alike.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, this mummy was assumed to belong to a male priest. However, ground-breaking work by the Warsaw Mummy Project revealed it was, in fact, female. More surprises arose when they discovered she was also the first known example of a pregnant mummy. 

Earlier this year, the Warsaw Mummy Project was astounded when CT scans of the “Mysterious Lady” revealed further evidence that the body’s pelvis cavity contained a fetus. Most remarkably, their study showed that the fetus had effectively been “pickled” by the highly acidic and low oxygen environment of the mummified womb, leaving it in remarkably good condition.

The researchers on the project told IFLScience that they often found themselves being asked how this young woman died, so they decided to find out. Further scans of the pregnant mummy’s skull revealed unusual signatures in the bone that suggest she was suffering from cancer. 

Skull of the “Mysterious Lady,” a pregnant ancient Egyptian mummy.

In particular, markings on the skull shows signs that modern doctors see in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer, a rare type of cancer that impacts the part of the throat that runs between the back of the nose to the back of the mouth.

“A small pathological change, about 7 millimetres in diameter, a round lesion surrounding an empty space, can be seen on the CT scans, in the bone behind the left orbit. This is most likely a change made by a tumour, possibly a metastatic site,” Wojciech Ejsmond and Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, co-directors of the Warsaw Mummy Project, told IFLScience.

“This type of metastatic change on the bones of the skull occurs, among others, after adenoma, but if it was this type of tumour, histopathological tests will give us a definitive answer. In addition, there are large cavities in the bones of the face, including the nasal cavity, maxillary sinuses, and the palatal part of the maxillary bones,” Ejsmond and Ozarek-Szilke explained. 

“The changes in the craniofacial bones are corresponding with nasopharyngeal cancer in modern patients.”

The yellow arrow is indicating a change made by a tumour, possibly a metastatic site, on the Mysterious Lady’s Skull.

To verify the cancer diagnosis, the researchers need to properly examine the mummy’s tissues. Identifying cancer within the actual tissues could also raise some other possibilities that scientists have excited about. 

The team from the Warsaw Mummy Project says that oncologists could determine the “molecular signature” of cancer found in the mummy and then compare it with current cancers. This, they say, could provide some valuable insights into the evolution of cancer. 

A bunch of ancient mummies have been discovered with possible signs of cancer in their bodies before. In 2017, scientists discovered the world’s oldest known cases of breast cancer and multiple myeloma in two ancient Egyptian mummies.

The two bodies, dating 2000 BCE and 1,800 BCE, were found buried at the pharaonic necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan and likely belonged to the elite classes of the governing Egyptian families of Elephantine. 

Despite their riches and fame, nothing could save them from an untimely death.

Africa’s 2000-year-old trees of life are suddenly dying off

Africa’s 2000-year-old trees of life are suddenly dying off

Africa’s iconic baobab trees are dying, and scientists don’t know why. In a study intended to examine why the trees are so long-living, researchers made the unexpected finding that many of the oldest and largest of the trees have died in the past decade or so.

Africa's 2000-year-old trees of life are suddenly dying off
The African baobab is one of the continent’s most recognizable tree species.

The African baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) is the oldest living flowering plant, or angiosperm, and is found in the continent’s tropical regions. Individual trees — which can contain up to 500 cubic metres of wood — can live for more than 2,000 years. Their wide trunks often have hollow cavities, and their high branches resemble roots sticking up into the air.

The researchers — who published their findings1 in Nature Plants on 11 June — set out to use a newly developed radiocarbon-dating technique to study the age and architecture of the species. Usual tree-ring dating methods are not suitable for baobabs, because their trunks do not necessarily grow annual rings.

The trees’ ages were previously attributed to their size. In local folklore, baobabs are often described as being old, says study author Adrian Patrut, a radiochemist at Babeş-Bolyai University in Romania.

Periodic renewal

Between 2005 and 2017, Patrut’s team dated more than 60 trees across Africa and its islands — nearly all of the continent’s largest, and potentially longest-living known baobabs. To compare the ages of different parts of the trees, the researchers collected samples of wood from the inner cavities and exteriors of the trunks and from deep incisions in the stems, which were then sealed to prevent infection.

Patrut and his colleagues say that their measurements suggest the trees live so long because they periodically produce new stems, similarly to how other trees produce new branches.

The team says that over time, these stems fuse into a ring-shaped structure, creating a false cavity in the middle.

But, surprisingly, the scientists also found that most of the oldest and largest baobabs died during the study, often suddenly between measurements.

Nine of the 13 oldest, and 5 of the 6 largest, baobabs measured died in the 12-year period — “an event of unprecedented magnitude”, says the study.

The researchers found no signs of an epidemic or disease, leading them to suggest that changing climates in southern Africa could be to blame — but they stress that more research is needed to confirm this idea.

In one instance, the researchers observed that in 2010 and 2011, all the stems of Panke, a giant, sacred baobab tree in Zimbabwe, fell over and died.

The team estimates that the tree was 2,450 years old, making it the oldest known accurately dated African baobab and angiosperm. Other trees across southern Africa also died completely or had partial stem collapse.

Previous research has shown a decline in the number of mature baobabs and a lack of young trees in the region.

Age-old questions

Local experts welcomed the technique for dating baobabs, but some were sceptical of the team’s findings on the die-off. Michael Wingfield, a plant pathologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, says that the team’s sample was small and did not provide evidence that baobabs are not afflicted by an epidemic. “We know very little about baobab health,” Wingfield says. “There is much more to this picture than purely the fact that the oldest trees are dying.”

Sarah Venter, a baobab specialist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, says that her team’s ongoing research shows that baobabs may not be as drought-resistant as previously thought — and this could be the cause of the deaths. But lower tolerance for drought would affect all the trees, not just the largest and oldest ones, she says.