Mummy Forensics: The Misfits (Ancient Egypt Documentary) | Timeline

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the best thing I can do is give this person some sort of context and they'll tell us why the crime was committed is are you motive I think the chemistry is telling us that this person is playing a very careful political and religious game do you think there's all this political upheaval going on in ancient Egypt and it's a encapsulated in a tiny sample the size of a pinhead just is that three thousand years old doesn't mean that we can't apply modern forensics and come up with good answers I mean far from convinced that's going to be an easy job it feels like it's doing more damage if you see what I mean this is a really exciting find in a brilliant result for this sort of experimental archaeology [Music] [Music] in Bolton museum in the north of England lies a unique mummy partially unwrapped yet spectacularly preserved after three millennia her identity shrouded in mystery her cause of death lost to history this is a great mommy fantastic preservation the coffin and mummy have been our probably our two most popular pieces and the Egyptian gallery you can see why yeah absolutely it's a beautiful coffin a number of people have studied it in great detail we know it's a very fine example of its periods we know who it was made for and what the oh that was yeah there's a lovely image there of the the person it was made for obviously a lady of very high status in her fine linen robes and lovely wig yeah and you can see just she's making an offering to a deity and then here on the panel of inscription you've got her her name and title he's the lady of the house the chalice of a moon ray king of the gardens and here's her name tome Henin's so we know who she was and what she did one thing I have noticed it does seem to be an incredibly tight fit for the person within so I'd be a little concerned that when this was actually completely wrapped I can't see how this person would have fitted inside this coffee you can really see where the shoulders are brushing against the signs of the coffin the mummy as you say would have been a good deal fatter when it was intact there's definitely something suspicious here we need to get them on me out so we can have a a good look dr. Joanne Fletcher's mission is to take this misfit mummy bring it to life and then find out how that life came to its end she is one of Britain's foremost Egyptologists and the world authority on mummies the grime of centuries could hide any number of secrets from a casual observer but Joanne is anything but casual beautifully preserved earlobe absolutely superb and the teeth that the teeth are really quite extraordinary because although there's some chipping there what you're actually seeing very distinctly here is a is a nova jet of the upper set of teeth which is a very unusual feature the initial physical inspection is crucial in her work the tiniest details often provide the vital clue as to how someone lived or died together with her team of elite scientists dr. Fletcher has investigated mummies on almost every continent this is going to be a tough case for the mummy investigation team dr. Stephen Buckley is one of the world's top archaeological chemists he uses cutting-edge techniques from the world of chemical research to identify substances in on and around mummies Duncan Lee's is a forensic archaeologist specializing in high-tech survey techniques his forensic expertise means he's called in to investigate modern crime scenes all over the world Joel Scott is an Egyptologist and an expert in the preservation and conservation of mummies her research skills and wealth of archaeological knowledge make her perfect as the team's archive and background researcher for the investigation the challenge is now on the team may have the tools of modern forensics but with little information to go on they'll need all their investigative skills to unlock this ancient mystery dr. Fletcher's briefing gives the team a starting point for the investigation the coffin apparently has been studied by quite a lot of academics over the years they know plenty about the the woman it was made for you can see it's beautiful colors this is the lady herself she was a priestess so you can imagine this in its complete state there is no way that body would have fitted originally into this coffin it seems to fit into me I mean it's in there yeah but you can see here I mean where the body's gone into the coffin and particularly runs the shoulder region it's taken off paint down the side of the coffin where it's been squeezed in Egyptian mummies were generally very well wrapped we've got documented evidence of you know up to 250 square meters of linen wrappings being used on these individuals the mummy size is a clear sign that something's not right but the team is going to need more to go on to have a chance of cracking the case there's a distinct facial feature there of overjet it's almost like book teeth in which you have the opposites of teeth protruding very much over the bottom set now this is potentially quite an intriguing fine because we know from the evidence that's already being collected that the Royals the Royal mummies the pharaohs of the New Kingdom also shared this distinct characteristic [Music] for the ancient Egyptians everything connected with death was significant if the team's going to find out who she was and how she died they can't afford to leave any stone unturned one tiny mark on the mummies face could be the key to the story embalming to do with the mummification or whether it's something else or just bask in well hasn't it been suggested that the mummy of Ramses v had smallpox because he's got these pustules on his face that's true but the science wasn't particularly convincing the next step in the investigation will be critical the 3,000 year old mummy is priceless and incredibly delicate if the team put a foot wrong while they're gathering evidence they could destroy the very clues they're looking for any human contact could contaminate the chemical evidence so Stephen Buckley takes his samples first every substance has its unique chemical fingerprint Stephens analysis of embalming materials can yield clues about ancient trade routes religious strife and even the politics of ancient Egypt the combinations of ingredients used for embalming very enormous Lee over the thousands of years of Egyptian history and identifying the chemical mix in a particular case and help pinpoint a date if Steven can identify the individual chemicals present in these samples the specific combinations could have a symbolic significance that will tell us about the mummies life and death the chemical analysis will take days if not weeks to process the next move is down to dr. Fletcher she calls in some specialists help to examine the pictograms that cover the site of the coffin could hieroglyphics expert Alan files reveal vital information for the teens what do you make of these particular hieroglyphs 21st dynasty yeah you tell by the element in the orange we have never laid house chantry's of a Monroe so she's shown before the gods and played instruments for the gods in the temple a very high absolutely a temple she'd be sort of a regular performer before there's an interesting story here in there nearly every detail of the Mummy's life is apparently recorded on the coffin she was a singer probably at one of Egypt's greatest temples Karnak participating in rituals with a sacred rattle called a sistrum it's a great start for the investigation well we certainly got plenty close to Goshen all the elements are there we've just got to put them together and try and make sense of it all another mystery upon us but a lovely piece of work the title written on the coffin chant reserved our moon was just as much a badge of social prominence as a job description chant races would be high-class women who would spend one month in three assisting at temple ceremonies in ancient Egypt the temples were highly restricted and jobs that provided access to them were reserved for the elite of Egyptian society the hieroglyphs have given Joanne a wealth of information about the mummy but shed no light on the cause of death in search of a breakthrough Joanne has brought in some heavy weight help paleo pathologist professor Don broth well has an international reputation that extends far beyond the world of archaeology his investigations of everything from mass murders to Danish bog bodies have made him a world authority with the help of a full-body x-ray scan Don will be able to see beneath the Mummy's ancient skin and the wrappings that cover her lower body to identify any injuries that could relate to her cause of death bottom the spine is seen and there seems to be some material inside the abdomen the upper teeth are very projected but in front of the lower teeth so you have a rather sort of prominent upper teeth and the jaw and the wear on the teeth suggest to me that's not particularly marked the fact that Don's dental inspection has revealed very little wear on the teeth means the mummy must have enjoyed a high-status diet of soft food and been less than 30 years old at the time of her death this young woman was struck down in the prime of her life we have something at the back of the skull which looks as if we have a deposit at the back either something pushed into the skull through the nasal area through the nose right can we move on to the thigh not a particularly large head of the femur which isn't a very masculine feature but combined with the pelvic knee toll I would say this is a fairly slender they built male this bombshell that the mummy is actually male means the team will have to rethink all their assumptions Steve interesting results we've done these digital x-rays and what we find in the skull and in the pelvis is very definite evidence so this is a male ah not female right there's enough information from the detail of the skull things like the frontal sinuses and parts of the pelvis which indicates you know the sex of the individual I'm absolutely sure this is male right so interesting puzzle Dawn's search for the mummy's cause of death has totally transformed its identity the fact that it's male not female helps explain why doesn't fit in the coffin but if this isn't the coffins original occupant all of the information from the caskets inscriptions is irrelevant the investigation is almost back to square one the team needs a fresh start Egyptologist Jill Scott wants to find out if modern dental medicine can tell us anything about the mummy so she tracks down orthodontic consultant Jake indolent well the mummy demonstrates a combination of both prominence of their paternity and also an element of what we would call mandibular REIT rusian so the lower jaw is actually set back in relation to the rest of the face the unusual combination of these two facial deformities would have made life difficult I think the main issue would have been one of heating food the mummy may not have been able to bite into an apple normally or if they had sandwiches in it sometimes they may not have been able to buy to some ways properly the mummy probably would have had to chop up the food to put in separately and what about speaking absolutely I mean there are many sounds including plosive sounds where you would put your lips together to make the necessary noise our mummy really wouldn't have been able to function in that way unless being would have been a real problem a picture is emerging of an individual beset by problems a young man with trouble eating speaking everyday things that we take for granted but while his distinctive teeth were troublesome could his condition also be a sign that he wasn't as unlucky as he's beginning to appear a family album of ancient Egyptian pharaohs hints at a possible royal connection and there is this opposition here that these people were all related so it tends to run in families so the Mummy's parents probably would have had a similar facial profile but it would pass down from one generation to the next we have patients referred to maybe 11 12 13 years of age and often as their parents walk through the door with patients you can see really how the children are going to turn out in later life right without without treatment absolutely I mean it is very possible but the moment and these other individuals have come from the same genetic stock if you like but those features alone wouldn't really point you to the fact they were definitely related what you really need to do is get into something like three-dimensional facial reconstruction so you can see what the face is like in all planes of space the dental evidence suggests the mummy could be related to royalty but it's going to take facial reconstruction and further investigations to confirm that a picture of the mummy is building up but the team's no closer to discovering how he died Joanne calls a meeting with his textbook knowledge of ancient diseases professor Don broth well could help pin down the mummies cause of death what do you think about this sort of marking on the face it's quite a suspicious-looking thing I mean there's not like a rash doesn't it well that's interesting because quite a few Egyptologists when they see these features on Mommy's have sort of raised the question is it smallpox is it evidence for some sort of killer disease smallpox was a massive killer in the ancient world responsible for millions of deaths worldwide victims of smallpox are covered with pustules that break off to leave ugly scarring resembling the marks on the Mummy's face with no known cure a diagnosis of smallpox was a death sentence until the disease was almost eradicated by vaccination in the last hundred years Dom's vast knowledge of human remains enables him to make a quick judgment my guess is it's post mortem it takes tens on to only regions of the of the body and I've seen the same kind of thing in bog bodies for instance and and again I think it's post mortem the most likely explanation for the marks on the Mummy's face is drying out of the skin during the embalming process with the killer disease eliminated as a cause of death the team turns to in-depth analysis of the x-ray results for answers the brain box is obviously empty except for what looks like a deposit at the back of the head and all of those little fragments there due to damage when the point of whatever metal implement it was was driven II think that explains these sorts of area of music bone is it lost bone because I was interested in cross-referencing with the sort of x-rays of Tutankhamun the most famous ancient Egyptian of them all but you also have what appears to be a kind of bone fragment which for many years was regarded as a cause of death you know this bash on the head was King took murdered and all so I'm interested on your thoughts on that little tiny fragment there bone fragments in the brain cavity could be evidence of foul play are they signs of a blow to the head like the one thought by many to have killed King Tutankhamun or are they just a byproduct of the mummification process so don't you think to try and work out exactly what's going on on this x-ray image we ought to undertake some fun of experiment yeah I think it'd be well worth while as long as you don't call me yes I'm not entirely happy with the way this is going judging by the conversation oh well I think we need somebody with a fair amount of strength on this one it's trying to recreate what was seen on the x-ray here we know that the brain was removed by some sort of force up through the nose with a metal tool and then the brain was taken out so what we're trying to do is recreate the sort of damage that you're getting within the human skull in an experimental way well that's what you can see what happens because I'm far from convinced that it's gonna be an easy if the experiment can produce chips of bone in the skull it could be a major step in the investigation but replicating a 3,000 year old brain removal process will be easier said than done the removal of the brain was just one stage of mummification for an ancient Egyptian the preservation of their body after death was the key to eternal life so tremendous importance was attached to every aspect of the embalming process to prevent decay the main internal organs other than the heart and kidneys were removed and stored separately removing the organs without damaging the rest of the body required tremendous skill on the part of the embalmers with the experiment underway to try to explain the bone fragments inside the skull the investigation is making headway and at the team's state-of-the-art chemical laboratory Stephen Buckley could be one step closer to finding the mummies identity after hours of careful preparation the first results from Stephens chemical analysis are starting to come through GCMs is the gold standard when it comes to identifying organic chemicals it provides a graphic fingerprint of every chemical compound within a minut sample that can mean hundreds of substances in a sample the size of a pinhead to identify components individually from a very complex mixture there's plenty of components in there so hopefully some of them will be quite using what we know so far certain substances were associated with particularly with certain vases so there's certainly symbolism certainly symbolism as well as being practical materials there's no I suppose we're really looking for the more minor components that may tell us something about political identity religious affiliations trade routes that sort of thing the GCMs machine heats the tiny samples until they turn into gas the temperature at which substances in the samples vaporize plays a key part in identifying them hours later he has his first breakthrough this is a major component in sample by mole it's actually a lot of it in time for example well it certainly points that out already to me is that the embalmers knew their stuff that they were choosing materials that would have genuinely have preservative property antibacterials so identifying three thousand-year-old plant residues would be impressive enough but not for Stephen Buckley he can even tell you what aptitude they grew at what we certainly have is a conifer resin what I'm trying to look for the hell my markers that suggests a mountain conifers that are exposed to high levels of radiation as they are a higher altitude and actually give a chemical fingerprint showing them sometimes get squeezed the cocktail of expensive embalming ingredients containing a resin from a distant Mountain conifer confirms the team's thoughts that the mummy must have been someone very important it also hints at exactly who this mummy may have been but that can only emerge after days of painstaking analysis while Stephens making progress on the mummies identity on his own Joanne's going to need some help to carry out her experiment on the cause of the mummies skull damage the fundamentals of metalworking haven't changed for thousands of years Don Barker is still practicing skills that would be familiar to any ancient medical tool maker Egyptian embalming tools were originally made in copper a soft metal easily bent into shape but almost as easily broken copper was eventually replaced by stronger metals so they're using authentic ancient designs to make tools in both copper and iron to see if Iver can produce the kind of bone chips seen in the mummy for the whisking process to liquefy the brain for removal Joanne has another tool made a long thin wire that will curve around the inside of the skull with the replica ancient Egyptian tools complete everything is set for a hands-on practical experiment which could determine whether these kinds of implements could have been the cause of the Mummy's skull damage following the revelation that our mummy is male Duncan meets facial reconstruction specialist Stephanie David Joe to build a picture of what he may actually have looked like so I have a virtual model of the skull here okay and what I then do is an analysis of the skull to determine sex approximate age as well as ethnic affiliation if I can determine that with these parameters in place Stephanie uses data gathered from modern populations to make an estimate of skin depth that she then applies to the model I can add eyes every person has approximately the same size of eyes but the placement inside of the eye socket or the orbital is dependent upon the individual one thing that was interesting that I noticed when reconstructing this individual was the market asymmetry in his orbitals his eyes aren't even like the deformed jaw the asymmetric eyes are another characteristic of some 18th and 19th dynasty Egyptian royalty as the pieces come together the mummies looks seem to become more and more extraordinary and you'll notice - and profile you see he's got quite a receding chin mm-hmm coupled with the overjet and he's got a convex nose so he's got kind of a beaky nose and a receding chin you know a building very good picture what this car - the fact as the dental evidence suggests the mummy was a young man with a whole host of problems next I can begin to build the overlying skin surface using the information from the tissue types and the muscles and the shape of the skull and you can begin to see what he looked like choose my words carefully distinctive yes I don't think he'd make any modern I guess with a forensic accurate picture of the mummy the investigation gains new impetus the team are no longer dealing with desiccated remains but a human being whose cause of death remains unknown Duncan and Joanne are poised to conduct the experiment that should help decide whether the mummy was killed by a blow to the head or whether the bone chips in the skull of the product of embalming with human volunteers in short supply the team have to compromise in our case we have to use a sheep's have bought in many ways the sheet and the human in terms of size especially the brain etcetera they're somewhat quite similarly the ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the centre for thought and emotion so they were unsentimental about removing the brain to stave off the decomposition process but with this the idea was that it was fast up inside the nose broke the top of the nasal bone and then the brain inside kind of whisked liquefied in effect and then it could be drained out back down the nose so time for attack probably easy just a few minutes into the experiment the team suffer a setback look it's bending and that's exactly what the blacksmith said would happen if we mark how far it's gone up that must have gone through into the cavity and it's bent around with the copper tool out of action Duncan is going to have to use a more modern iron version to stand any chance of recreating the damage in the Mummy's skull it's much much tougher and hasn't been to around the skull cavity but has definitely gone through it fact I'm probably not gonna be able to take the exam again amount to the damage and these are fantastic because this is exactly I wouldn't be able to extract all of these with the hook I don't think I could pull all of the brain out chunks of brain tissue are a good start but bone fragments remain elusive Egyptian embalmers could remove a brain by liquid izing it in as little as twenty minutes if Duncan can't produce bone chips in this time with the more destructive iron tool the test must be considered a failure so the 20 minutes is up Duncan so how's it going well I can't actually quite believe I'm saying this but it's been incredibly interesting I mean what I've been able to do is extract actually quite a lot of the brain tissue here using both this the smaller and thinner whippy action but also with the heavy duty tool as well material has been coming out but what's interesting to me most of all is that within this material there are chips of though really very clear shards of bone that's exactly what we've seen on the x-rays are the Bolton will me I'll just take the skull and tip it up here and see whether we get anything coming out through the nasal cavity I have spent a long you know it's good 20 minutes and violently moving the instruments around but what we get is a big fat zero absolutely nothing the brain may not have completely liquidized in 20 minutes but the experiment is still a major boost for the investigation the brain removal process has produced visible chips of bone with the embalming procedure itself clearly capable of causing this damage there's just no reason to suppose that our mummy was hit on the head it must be ruled out of the investigation with one cause of death eliminated the team are making real progress now some hard work in the lab is uncovering exciting developments in the quest for the mummies identity remnants of cloth from the Mummy's wrappings contain telltale evidence certainly one of the things that struck me particularly when I was looking at the actual mummy in Bolton the very fine quality of this linen because quite a lot of mummies Egyptian mummy certainly erupting quite often quite coarse material often reused recycled even amongst sort of what you call the middle classes I guess but with this one it's it's really fine stuff you know the finest quality definitely and it's almost as if the linens being applied look a bit like papier-mache it's being applied in a thin layer and then coated in something and then another layer of roughing applied and another layer of culture so I'd really be interested to see if the coatings applied on each layer and certainly at different areas of the body because there's plenty sort of go on here isn't and there's a lot of contrasting things at play I think jo-ann's examination of the fabric confirms the team's first instincts that the mummy is someone very high class but the results of Steve's chemical analysis promised dramatic new developments the chemistry looking is actually looking quite interesting we've got a lot of time on which is something that occurs in time for example what we've also got where this triterpene addressed it's a pistachio that's a very distinguished chemical fingerprint all those ingredients put together to some extent it's a royal marker so I think it suggests this was with someone of note given the FT amount that's being used the pistachio shrub prized for its sweet-smelling resin was used almost exclusively for embalming members of Egyptian royalty during the era of the New Kingdom suddenly the notion that our mummy is of royal descent has gone from an intriguing idea to a definite possibility but Stephen has even more surprises up his sleeve what's also interesting curious initially was the fact we actually have a division so a line is being drawn through the mummy if you like the left side suggest sheep possibly goat with the right side he's gone cow or both one half of the Mummy's upper body was covered in sheep fat the other in cow fat each substance symbolically linked to rival Egyptian gods sheep or goat was a mistake Rudrama the moon represented the sort of grand traditions of the ancient Egyptians but then he sort of played both sides isn't it if he's sort of exactly Cheryl he's got this link to the Hathor the ball bearing goddess leaked to the Sun it's an incredible discovery by analyzing tiny drops of fat taken from both sides of the body Stephen Buckley has opened up a dramatic chapter of Egyptian history Egypt in 1250 BC was politically divided between north and south Hathor the cow was daughter of the ancient Sun God rah a symbol of the North favored by priests who were loyal to the Pharaoh the God our moon represented by a ram was the chief deity of the powerful priests who dominated the South I think the chemistry is telling us that this person is playing a very careful political a religious game he wants to get the balance right he's actually showing that he's Pro moon and Pro Roth and he think there's all this political upheaval going on in ancient Egypt and it's encapsulated in a tiny sample the size of a pinhead if the mummy was performing this delicate political and religious balancing act in death it narrows down the possibilities of who they were in life so the basis of this amazing data I were able to sort of try and pinpoint more precisely hold this this person may or may not be I think for me from from the chemistry and the mummification evidence that we have it suggests a possible ramses ii connection with the shaven head that's an interesting one because of course it's a clear mark of a priest in isolation the mummies lack of hair wouldn't be significant but combined with all the other evidence of his status his distinctive facial features and the religious importance of his embalming materials it's a key indicator of his identity then potentially we're looking at one of the royal sons of one of the pharaohs the chemistry suggests this mummy was rich and important a prince of the royal house a priest and a political player in one of the most turbulent periods in Egyptian history the incredible 66 year reign of ramesses ii was an exciting time to be alive in ancient egypt led by its extravagant King the Egyptian Empire expanded dramatically before slowly tumbling into economic decline Ramses was responsible for building some of the most spectacular monuments in ancient Egypt many of which survived today the temple complexes at Karnak and the Ramesseum forever pay silent tribute to an era of great achievements and great political intrigue the teeth the eyes the chemistry and the shaven head all point to one identity of the hundreds of children that ramasees ii fathered many would be sent into the priesthood where they could enjoy some of the most powerful and privileged positions in egyptian society from within their magnificent temples the priesthood could exert control over every aspect of Egyptian life the team are managing to put together an extraordinary picture of who this mummy was in life but they're no closer to knowing how he died for an answer to this vital question they'll need some high-tech assistance a cat-scan computer assisted tomography uses a series of x-rays to build a 3d image of the body hundreds of images taken from 360 degrees around the body are combined to build the picture with this state-of-the-art imaging device paleo pathologist Don broth whale can find traces of injury or illness in the ancient mummy that would elude a normal x-ray hoping to find so we ought really to look to see if they find an oblique embalming incision it'll place the mummy in Egypt's 18th dynasty and everything the team has discovered would be thrown into question again if the incision is vertical the mummy would be tied to the 19th dynasty the time of ramses ii during embalming the organs would be removed through a single cut in the abdomen after mummification it would generally be tightly stitched making the incision very thin and hard to find left-hand side where we should be finding the incision the skill of the Egyptian embalmers makes it a difficult search but eventually they find it it's a vertical incision the discovery of the incision puts the mummy squarely in the time of ramses ii but further investigation will be needed to identify how the mummy died but obviously if we really are going to try and find the cause of death we need to work over every image very carefully back in york detailed analysis of the CT scans has uncovered a surprise hidden beneath the Mummy's wrappings this is a man so we're coming down now into the pelvis can you see we're beginning to get her separate structure showing up there beyond the abdomen I'm very sure we're seeing sections of the penis there so this man all right that looks very very sort of dense it looks like it's been quite well wrapped well it's been well prepared for death in the next life I can't see any evidence of his scrotum or testicles the embalmers have taken great care to leave the mummy well prepared for the afterlife but their preparations have left us with a puzzle we're dealing with all sections of the arm about here look how the skin is again we seem to be dealing with a body with not very much tissue around the bone it does look very high-status a member of the elite and he'd imagine had a very very high status diet if there is this evidence of sort of potential emaciation does that suggest this individual was undernourished well it could be a disease couldn't it or they are all terms of his account sir so could it be that that's causing this cancer can cause dramatic weight loss irrespective of diet just like today it was a problem for the ancient Egyptians even for young men in the prime of life like the mummy there's no good evidence of growth or erosions into tissue which suggests to me that it is new tumor evidence there at all except for the thinness of the body we might of course be dealing with the body where the actual tumors tissue has been removed while the Mummy's body shows signs of cancer the cancerous tissue itself like the Mummy's scrotum is mysteriously absent could these two absences be linked today testicular cancer is relatively rare but it can still be deadly 3,000 years ago it was even deadlier the problem might be diagnosed that was impossible to treat when a cancer sufferer died the embalmers were known to remove ugly cancerous growths so that their bodies were again perfect for the afterlife the mummies of ramses ii and his son Merneptah both had their testicles removed whether this is evidence of a hereditary vulnerability to cancer or simply a family mummification tradition is hard to say but crucially the scans have raised a real possibility for how the mummy died at Bolton Museum Don broth well joins Stephen Buckley in trying an old technique that could fill out the final branch of the Mummy's family tree facial reconstruction has brought to life the mummies extraordinary features but to prove that they are a family trait another test is needed the facial features that determine a person's looks can be scientifically measured and compared with craniofacial measurements of family members the proportions of the nose and chin can be just as distinctive as fingerprints what I've seen is some interesting patterns in the Royal mummies and there's some hints of possible similarities here so it's a question of you know we can get out of that by doing and getting accurate measurements here accuracy in these measurements is absolutely essential the tiniest mistake could render the results meaningless upper facial it would be nice that's right lit is obscuring the yeah as guests and preventing us getting an accurate measurement so I think perhaps the expert the x-rays might provider I mean yeah cranial facial measurements can be taken from a human body or from x-rays it's an old technique dating back to the 19th century nowadays it's rarely used in modern criminal investigations where DNA has become the single most important tool in positively identifying individuals but DNA is vulnerable to extremes of temperature and is almost certain to have been destroyed by heat time and the substance is used in embalming for ancient artifacts like Egyptian mummies craniofacial measurement will always stand the test of time back in York the final piece of the jigsaw is almost in place however accurate Stephens measurements are they mean nothing on their own to prove scientifically that this mummy is related to ramses ii the statistics must be compared with data gathered from Egyptian royal mummies including Ramses himself I looked at all the mummies that we have from the New Kingdom the one that stands out as being most similar to ours is Ronis east a second you know of these six key measurements four of them virtually identical with your MCS our second yes the link between these two mummies is not just statistical the resemblance is more than skin-deep a second that is so similar look at that yeah the nose the degree of overjet the over the angle and the chin is such a distinguished Joel the REM essential The Mummy differs significantly from ramasees ii in only two measurements surprisingly these two rogue statistics actually reinforce the mummies linked to ramasees through his father SETI other than these couple of measurements here where it's SETI the first those we know was Ramses a second's father yeah so that's that will be expected from father to son and then our individual that's amazing hmm yes the mystery of the Mummy's identity appears to be solved at last he's almost certainly a blood relative of one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs when we find in the skull and in the pelvis is very definite evidence so this is a male I mean it is very possible but the moment and these other individuals have come from the same genetic stock if you like I think the chemistry is telling us that this person is playing a very careful political religious game that is so similar look at that it could be a disease couldn't it or they are Potter's it is a cancer after weeks of intense work the investigation has yielded discoveries no one could have anticipated we have as in a relative of Ramses or certain days is quite mind-blowing did any one of those pieces of information if we hadn't had if we haven't found it could have taken is in a completely different direction for me we just let the science do the talking yeah it's big stressor for this mummy the science speaks volumes contrary to the inscriptions on the casket this mummy is male switched into the casket either in Egypt or during his long journey to Britain and bulky Museum the team's painstaking work has painted a picture of a fascinating life and suggested that the mummy could have died of cancer while still young so so basically this person had a life wanting absolutely which which makes the man who is death such as Don flogged okay it certainly appears to be some sorts of wasting disease possibly even cancer I mean that's that's a tragic irony this rich powerful man who should have enjoyed a comfortable existence at the pinnacle of Egyptian society was perhaps humbled by a condition that respects neither wealth nor power and still haunts us today every time we look at the bodies its it's not you know an object in space and time it's not I don't understand them because this is a statist individual you connect on a very human way we aren't looking at just some artifact in a museum this is a living breathing human being that people want to loft on once cared they had the same fears that we did and the same felt that he claimed that we do I think that's why it's nice that we've got some way to giving him his identity back the idea of gaining immortality through mummification might seem strange to us but in a very real sense this mummies embalmers succeeded in their tasks they're careful work has ensured that his memory and his identity will endure for thousands of years beyond his death you you

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Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: Channel 4 documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, stories, mummy forensics, egypt, real, ancient history, Full length Documentaries, pharoah, Archaeology, documentary history, Documentaries, TV Shows - Topic, 2017 documentary, History, Documentary, BBC documentary, history documentary, Full Documentary

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Length: 48min 28sec (2908 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2017

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