Experts claim material from Tutankhamun’s dagger may have come from outer space

A gold-hilted dagger found in the tomb of King Tut surprised archaeologists when they discovered that it was made of a material forged in outer space. Now, two new studies are painting conflicting pictures of the origins of the mysterious weapon, which may have been wielded by arguably the most famous ancient Egyptian pharaoh.

One of those studies on the dagger, made of iron from meteors, suggests it was manufactured in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), while the other study indicates its Earthly origins are still a mystery. 

At the time King Tutankhamun reigned (1333 B.C. to 1323 B.C.), iron smelting had not been invented yet, meaning the metal was a rare and precious commodity that often came from meteors.

In one of the new studies, published Feb. 11 in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, researchers describe how an adhesive used on the dagger’s gold hilt was likely made of lime plaster, a material that was used in Anatolia at the time Tutankhamun reigned. This lime plaster, however, was not widely used in Egypt at that time, the researchers wrote. 

Additionally, historical records found at the site of Amarna, in Egypt, show that Tushratta, the king of Mitanni in Anatolia, gifted at least one iron dagger to Amenhotep III (who reigned from about 1390 B.C. to 1352 B.C.), the grandfather of Tutankhamun, the researchers noted. 

The team also found that the “iron blade was made by low-temperature heat forging at less than 950 °C [1,742 degrees Fahrenheit],” since a mineral called troilite and formations of iron-nickel crystals known as “widmanstätten patterns” could be seen on the dagger, the researchers wrote in the journal article. 

A different viewpoint

However, in another study, published in the book “Iron from Tutankhamun’s Tomb” (American University in Cairo Press, 2022), researchers found that “it is currently impossible to arrive at a reliable conclusion as to the origin of Tutankhamun’s iron objects or the craftsmen and materials involved,” the research team wrote. 

Those study authors noted that the “rock crystal” of the blade’s pommel is similar to artefacts widely used in the Aegean area, while the pommel’s “typically Egyptian shape suggests either manufacture in Egypt or foreign production for an Egyptian market,” the research team wrote. “As a result, no clear overall picture on the origin of the dagger’s handle and blade” can be made. 

Scholars react

Live Science contacted several scholars not affiliated with either study to get their reactions.

Albert Jambon, a researcher at Sorbonne University in France who has conducted extensive research on artefacts made of meteor iron, was unconvinced by the findings that placed the manufacture of the dagger in Anatolia. 

Jambon disputed the claim that the lime plaster was used as an adhesive. He noted that in the 1920s, limestone powder was used for the cleaning of some Tutankhamun artefacts and that the chemical tests used in the study detected this cleaning solution, not an adhesive.

Additionally, “the hilt and the blade are two separate parts” and could have been manufactured in different places, Jambon said in an email. 

Marian Feldman, W.H. Collins Vickers chair in archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, said that if the team’s findings that the dagger was manufactured in Anatolia are correct, it “would be important confirmation that some of the luxurious objects found in Tutankhamen’s tomb were diplomatic gifts from abroad,” Feldman wrote in an email. More research is needed to confirm those findings, Feldman added. 

Archaeologists discover a 2,600-year-old castle on Egypt’s border

A former military castle that experts think served as a gate to Egypt’s eastern border protecting it from the Persians 2,600 years ago has been unearthed. Discovered in North Sinai, the fortress is believed to date to 664-610 BC in the Psamtik era – the last before the Persian invasion in 525 BC.

Photos released from the dig reveal a number of items including metal arrowheads, stone daggers and figurines.

The building was discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission and has been dated to almost three millennia ago, a hundred years before the Persians invaded Egypt.

According to Mr Hussein, it has encountered serious attacks that destroyed most of its buildings.  

The remnants indicated two castles on the site and it’s thought the main castle which has 16 towers was built on the structure of unfinished construction. 

During the excavation work, some rooms for the soldiers who were tasked with securing the castle were found.   

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a statement: ‘The mud brick-constructed castle that belonged to the 26th dynasty is the oldest historically,’

He added that the 85-meter-long southern wall of the castle was built on a structure of another unfinished castle.  

In a post on Facebook by the Ministry of Antiquities, the government agency said that it had located a tower previously standing on the northeast corner and the remains of the South-East Corner Tower, as well as parts of a southern wall. 

‘So far, the excavation works are completed to discover the remains of architectural installations inside the castle,’ the post said.

‘This is the historic castle that the mission revealed on its eastern wall in 2008 and was built on the ruins of this castle another castle that has been previously revealed on the site.’

The Psamtik era which lasted from 664-610 BC was also known as the 26th dynasty, after which a battle led by Persian King Cambyses II defeated Psamtik III‘s army at the Battle of Pelusium, a city on Egypt’s eastern frontier.

After only six months on the throne, Psamtik II went into battle with the Persian invasion led by King Cambyses II. 

The Persians crossed Sinai with assistance from the Arabs, where the battle ensued at Pelusium. 

The Egyptian military withdrew to Memphis, the traditional capital near Cairo and Cambyses besieged the Sinai and captured it, seizing Psamtik III.

 The former king was initially well treated, but he was later executed for conspiracy against the Persians.

The Persian empire extended to a vast area that includes modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and lasted from the 6th century BC to the 20th century AD.  

How Studying Mummies Could Cure Modern Diseases

Earlier this year, scientists published a study of whole-body CT scans of 137 mummies: ancient Egyptians and Peruvians, ancestral Puebloans of southwest America, and Unangan hunter-gatherers of the Aleutian Islands.

They reported signs of athero­sclerosis—a dangerous artery hardening that can lead to heart attacks or stroke—in 34 per cent of them. What struck the research team, led by Randall Thompson of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, was that it afflicted mummies from every group. Frank Rühli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, also sees the condition in about 30 to 50 per cent of the adult specimens he studies.

The breadth of these findings suggests that atherosclerosis today may have less to do with modern excesses such as overeating and more with underlying genetic factors that seem present in a certain percentage of humans living almost anywhere in the world. Someday, identifying those genes could lead to new drugs for heart disease.

They’re now finding signs of everything from prostate cancer to malaria in mummies across the globe.

Ancient mummies can provide a wealth of information about the health of early civilizations, which may help us better treat diseases today. But because mummies are both rare and delicate, researchers have been limited in what they could do to them—and therefore what they could learn from them.

Recent improvements of two medical tools—DNA sequencing, which can reveal microbial infections, and CT scanning—are letting paleopathologists diagnose mummies’ causes of death in detail. They’re now finding signs of everything from prostate cancer to malaria in mummies across the globe.

By comparing the ancient forms of those diseases with their contemporary equivalents, researchers can learn how those diseases evolved, what makes them so harmful, and—possibly—how to stop them.

In the case of tuberculosis (TB), which kills upwards of 1.4 million people a year, researchers are using DNA sequencing and CT scans in mummies to understand what conditions TB thrives in and how to treat it.

Work from Haagen Klaus, a biological anthropologist at George Mason University, suggests that, contrary to what some experts think, Europeans might have brought a particularly deadly form of TB to the Americas.

His preliminary DNA data hints that Peruvian remains dating back to the 10th century—before Spanish explorers arrived—might have been infected with a more benign strain of the TB bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, or a different species altogether, Mycobacterium kansasii. And many studies have shown that the bodies of Central Americans from before and after European contact rarely, if ever, show signs of TB symptoms. Klaus subscribes to the hypothesis that this may be because M. tuberculosis thrives in the presence of iron, and these people ate a low-iron diet with little meat. If true, this insight could point to new drugs that would inhibit M. tuberculosis from taking up an iron.

Researchers use magnetic resonance imaging to see inside mummies, such as this one from ancient Peru.

Other scientists are using DNA sequencing to investigate Chagas disease, an illness caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which can cause fatal heart failure or swelling of digestive system organs.

The parasite infects roughly 10 million people, mostly in Latin America, and appears to be spreading. Some think that different strains of the parasite affect different organs. So in 2008, when Ana Carolina Vicente and Ana Jansen of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro reported their discovery of T. cruzi in the enlarged colon of a 560-year-old mummified body from Brazil, they might have come upon an important clue.

Previously, they found T. cruzi in a sample of bone remains from 4,500 to 7,000 years ago. Comparing the DNA of different samples of the parasite could reveal more about its evolution and spread, and perhaps influence treatment someday.

Paleopathologists are also taking advantage of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which detects signals from water.

Dry mummies haven’t been perfect for this technique, but recent improvements in MRI might make for better images of soft tissues, such as tongues. Plus, unlike the radiation from CT scanning, MRI has no possible risk of damaging DNA evidence.

Large Cache of Embalming Materials Discovered in Egypt

A team of Egyptologists from Charles University in Prague made the discovery in the western part of the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Abusir in the spring of last year when exploring a group of large shaft tombs located there.

The collection of large ceramic vessels, containing residues of various materials used during the mummification ritual, was found in one huge shaft, carefully placed in 14 layers.

The deposit, which dates back to the 6th century B.C., also included some other objects, says Jiří Janák from the Institute of Egyptology, who was one of the members of the research team:

“Among the objects, we found there were other smaller vessels as well as pieces of ashes from a fire that burned somewhere near the place where the person was mummified. We also found remnants of natron, a substance that the Egyptians used to dry the dead body.”

Experts also found residues of resins, oils or myrrh in the amphora-shaped containers. In addition to these, the deposit also contained four so-called canopic jars made of limestone, that were used for storing the viscera removed from the body during the embalming process.

“What we found were empty canopic jars, which had not yet been used. Interestingly, there were inscriptions on them including the name of the owner. That’s what helped us identify the person to whom this deposit belonged.”

So far, experts from the Czech Institute of Egyptology have only opened a part of the nearly 400 sealed vessels.

This year, they are going to continue to analyse the ceramic containers and their contents.

Another part of the team will be examining the adjacent structure right next to the mummification deposit. That will most likely be the tomb of the deposit’s owner, who, according to the inscriptions on the jars, was named Wahibre-mery-Neith.

The team of Czech Egyptologists has been working on the site in Abusir already since the 1960s and has one of the largest archaeological sites loaned by the Egyptians to foreigners, explains archaeologist Veronika Dulíková:

“Imagine an area that’s about two square kilometres in size. We have an amazing concession here with enormous potential.

We estimate that only around ten per cent of the total area has been explored so far.”

The burial site at Abusir has been continuously used throughout the whole of ancient Egypt’s history. Czech experts believe that the new discovery will shed more light on the process of mummification.

Egypt: a 4,200-year-old funerary temple for a queen discovered

Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities has revealed details of the latest landmark discoveries to emerge from the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo. The vast burial grounds sit in what was once Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to more than a dozen pyramids, including Egypt’s oldest, the Pyramid of Djoser.

The site has yielded thousands of artifacts over decades of excavation, but among the biggest rewards for Egyptologists in this latest round of discoveries was the identity of a queen who died around 4,200 years ago.

Her tomb was discovered at a site adjacent to the pyramid of King Teti, the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt’s the Old Kingdom, the era between about 2680 and 2180 BC known as the Age of the Pyramids. 

“The excavation started in 2010 when we discovered a pyramid of a queen next to the pyramid of King Teti, but we didn’t find a name inside the pyramid to tell us who the pyramid belonged to,” leading Egyptologist and former minister of antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass told CBS News.

About a month ago they discovered a funerary temple, and now researchers finally have a name for the ancient female monarch: Queen Neit, the wife of King Teti. Her name was finally found, carved on a wall in the temple, and also written on a fallen obelisk in the entrance to her tomb.

“I’d never heard of this queen before. Therefore, we add an important piece to Egyptian history, about this queen,” said Hawass, who heads the archaeological mission. He said the recent discoveries would help “rewrite” the history of ancient Egypt.

His team also discovered 52 burial shafts, each around 30 to 40 feet deep, inside of which they found have more than 50 wooden coffins dating back to the New Kingdom, around 3,000 years ago.

“Actually, this morning we found another shaft,” Hawass told CBS News on Monday. “Inside the shaft, we found a large limestone sarcophagus. This is the first time we’ve discovered a limestone sarcophagus inside the shafts. We found another one that we’re going to open a week from now.”

The team also found a papyrus about 13 feet long and three feet wide, on which Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead is written in hieroglyphics, with the name of its owner recorded on it. The Book of the Dead is an ancient manuscript that explains how to navigate through the afterlife to reach the field of the Aaru — paradise, to ancient Egyptians.  

Hawass said it was the first time such a large papyrus had been discovered inside a burial shaft.  

Other finds from the site include numerous wooden funerary masks, a shrine dedicated to the god Anubis (Guardian of the Cemetery), statues of Anubis, and games that were buried with the dead, to keep them busy in the afterlife. One of them was a game called “Twenty,” found with its owner’s name still visibly written on it.

Another game, called “Senet” (cross), was found in the shafts. It’s similar to chess, but if the deceased player wins, they go safely into the afterlife.

The cache of embalming materials unearthed in Abu Sir

The archaeological mission of the Czech Institute of Egyptology discovered a cache of mummification materials during archaeological excavations inside a group of burial wells dating back to the 26th Dynasty and located in the western part of the Abu Sir cemetery.

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri explained that this cache was found inside a huge well measuring 5.3 x 5.3 meters and of depth exceeding 14 meters. 

The cache contains unique embalming materials, consisting of 370 large pottery vessels divided into 14 groups, each group containing from 7 to 52 pots.

Waziri added that these pots contain remnants of materials that were used during the mummification process.

Waziri further indicated that in the upper group, four empty limestone canopic pots engraved with hieroglyphic texts in the name of their owner, a person named Wahibre, were found.

For his part, Miroslav Barta, head of the mission, noted, “the 2021 season was part of a long-term project aimed at uncovering antiquities dating back to an era when ancient Egyptian society was looking for new ways to preserve the unique Egyptian identity.

The tombs of Abu Sir, which were built in a similar way to the famous pyramid of Djoser, the most famous king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, played a major role in showing the unique Egyptian culture, which was expressed by the Egyptian eras in that period.”

Moreover, Deputy Director of the Czech Mission Mohammad Megahid confirmed that archaeological excavations will continue in the area through 2022. 

At the same time, studies and analysis of the contents of the pottery vessels will be started using modern scientific methods.

Hieroglyphic Texts Discovered on Coffins Believed to Contain Mummies of Birds and Guts

Three burial shafts believed to contain mummified birds were discovered near Cairo. The coffins, which are covered in ancient hieroglyphic texts, were found in the Abusir necropolis, a large cemetery.

The discovery was made after authorities received reports of illegal excavations in the area, according to Ahram Online.

In additional to 38 carved ceramic pots, the committee discovered that the graves held four wooden coffins. Though in poor condition, hieroglyphic texts are still visible on their surfaces.

Sabri Farag, the director-general of the Saqqara Necropolis and leader of the excavation committee, said that one of the texts featured a cartouche—an oval tablet bearing text specifically associated with royalty—of King Ptolemy IV, according to Ahram Online. 

King Ptolemy IV reigned from 221 B.C. to 205 B.C.

The hieroglyphs were too badly degraded for experts to decipher anything further, but additional studies are being planned to reveal more, according to Ahram Online.

Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Mostafa Waziri said that an excavation committee was formed to investigate the site as quickly as possible following reports of illegal grave-digging, according to Ahram Online.

The coffins are believed to contain four mummified bodies, but not of humans—of birds. Also found in the coffins were three of the mummies’ stomachs, wrapped protectively in linen.

Removal of internal organs during the mummification process was common practice, according to the Smithsonian Institution. In addition to removing moisture from the body, embalming involves taking out anything that would rot especially quickly, like organs.

Animal mummification was also common practice in ancient Egypt. While the precise purpose of mummifying creatures like dogs, cats, and birds remains unknown, ancient Egyptians viewed animals as of equal importance to humans, according to The New York Times.

For instance, a mummified ibis—a sacred bird with a long hooked beak—would have been preserved because that bird was associated with the deity Thoth, the god of magic and wisdom, according to The New York Times.

And yet, a CT scan of one such mummy revealed “just a bundle of feathers” inside. A separate scan of a different bird mummy revealed that it really did contain a bird—which had choked to death on a mouse, according to National Geographic.

All of which is to say that these newly discovered mummies might be, quite literally, full of surprises.

Archaeologists Identify Mummified Legs as Queen Nefertari’s

A team of international archaeologists believe a pair of mummified legs on display in an Italian museum may belong to Egyptian Queen Nefertari — the favourite wife of the pharaoh Ramses II.

The team, which included Dr Stephen Buckley and Professor Joann Fletcher from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, used radiocarbon dating, anthropology, palaeopathology, genetics and chemical analysis to identify the remains.

They conclude that “the most likely scenario is that the mummified knees truly belong to Queen Nefertari.”

As the favourite wife of the pharaoh Ramses II, Nefertari was provided with a beautifully decorated tomb in the Valley of the Queens to which Professor Fletcher was recently given access.

Although plundered in ancient times, the tomb, first excavated by Italian archaeologists in 1904, still contained objects which were sent to the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

This included a pair of mummified legs which could have been part of a later interment as was often the case in other tombs in the region.

But as the legs had never been scientifically investigated, it was decided to undertake the recent study to find out if the legs could actually represent all that remained of one of Egypt’s most legendary queens.

The study, published in the journal Plos One, revealed that the legs are those of an adult woman of about 40 years of age.

Dr Buckley’s chemical analysis also established that the materials used to embalm the legs are consistent with 13th Century BC mummification traditions, which when taken in conjunction with the findings of the other specialists involved, led to the identification.

Professor Fletcher said: “This has been the most exciting project to be part of, and a great privilege to be working alongside some of the world’s leading experts in this area.

“Both Stephen and myself have a long history studying Egypt’s royal mummies, and the evidence we’ve been able to gather about Nefertari’s remains not only complements the research we’ve been doing on the queen and her tomb but really does allow us to add another piece to the jigsaw of what is actually known about Egyptian mummification.”