Accidentally taking a CT scan, an expert discovered the secret of 3 mummies lying inside each other, causing curiosity from 115 years ago

A new study published in December 2023 discovered an ancient mummy of an unborn fetus inside the mummy of an Egyptian teenager.

When archaeologists excavated and unwrapped the mummy in 1908, they discovered the bandaged remains of a fetus and the remains of a placenta between the girl's legs. Field notes from the time reveal that researchers concluded the fetus was related to the mummified woman—a girl between 14 and 17 years old who lived in ancient Egypt between the late Dynastic period (approximately 712 and 332 BC) and the Coptic period (between 395 and 642 AD). Researchers cut open the mother's abdomen and found the fetus's skull stuck in the birth canal, suggesting that the girl died from complications during childbirth.

But it wasn't until a century later that researchers discovered a second fetus, this time hidden in the girl's chest. "This is the first mummy of its kind to be discovered , " said independent archaeologist Francine Margolis, lead author of the study. Although there are many known tombs of women who died in childbirth in the archaeological record,  "there has never been a case found in Egypt ," Margolis told Live Science. 

X-ray images show two fetuses inside the mother's mummy.

Previously, in 2021, researchers announced the discovery of a pregnant Egyptian mummy, but other experts disputed the results and concluded the woman was not pregnant when she died in a 2022 study.

Margolis first studied the mummy, which was excavated in 1908, while writing her master's thesis in anthropology at George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC, on the morphology of the female pelvis in 2019.  "I did a CT scan of the mummy to get measurements of the pelvis. That's when we discovered the second fetus," Margolis said . The 3D image showed the remains of a fetus, which had no previous records, in the girl's chest.

Margolis and David Hunt, co-author of the new study and an anthropologist at GWU, X-rayed the mummy to get a better picture of the fetal remains.  "When we saw the second fetus, we knew we had a unique discovery and a first for ancient Egyptian archaeology," Margolis said .

Researchers re-examined the mummy's torso and the fetus outside to confirm the cause of death. They also reviewed and compiled notes and photographs taken during the 1908 excavation. Margolis and Hunt discovered that the girl died during labor after the head of the first fetus became stuck. According to the study, the head of a fetus when it comes out of the womb during birth is usually bent down to the chest to pass through the pelvis. The researchers believe that in this case, the head was not bent down in a position that was too wide to pass through and became stuck.

Results from the 2019 analysis showed the mother was about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed between 100 and 120 pounds. The researchers noted in the new study that her small size and young age may have contributed to the failed twin birth.

It is still unclear how the remains of the second fetus came to be in the girl's chest. Researchers believe that the diaphragm and other tissues may have dissolved during the mummification process, allowing the smaller body to move upward. Childbirth in ancient Egypt is not well documented, but existing records suggest that twins were considered undesirable in that era.