| Abydos Boy Human Mummy | |
| |
| Biographical Information | |
|---|---|
| Name(s) | unknown |
| Age | 3 |
| Sex | m |
| Status | elite |
| Height | 2'4" |
| Source | |
| Culture | Egyptian |
| Date(s) | +-380 BC |
| Site | Abydos |
| Current Location | |
| Location | Carnegie Museum of Natural History |
| Catalog # | |
Abydos Boy was excavated in Abydos, Egypt, in 1911, and is now housed in the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt, Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Carnegie Museum purchased the mummy from Swiss Egyptologist Henri Edouard Naville in 1912, about a year after British Egyptologist T. Eric Peet joined Naville’s expedition and discovered the mummy in the only intact tomb in an Abydos cemetery.
The tomb’s contents included seven adult mummies in limestone sarcophagi and five child mummies in wooden coffins. Inside each coffin, each mummy was elaborately decorated with a mask, a breastplate, three panels over the legs, and a foot covering.
Studies[]
This child mummy was x-rayed in the 1940s and again in 1986.
In 2007, the mummy underwent a CAT scan which revealed the mummy was a boy, about three years old, who probably died of a congenital thyroid disorder, and measured 2-foot-4-inches tall. The toddler was small even by Egyptian standards.
It was discovered a delayed closure of the anterior fontanel (or “soft spot”) and the skull itself was smaller than average. The team’s diagnosis: his small size, smaller-than-average cranium, and still-prevalent soft spot could be signs of a condition called hypothyroidism, or severe thyroid deficiency
The child lived about 300 B.C.
External Links[]
https://carnegiemnh.org/?s=mummy
https://carnegiemuseums.org/magazine-archive/2008/fall/article-111.html