An Egyptian mummy’s silent ‘scream’ might have been fixed at death

An ancient Egyptian mummy, dubbed the “Screaming Woman” for what appears to be an open-mouthed look of pain or fear, might have had that expression fixed in place by a rare muscle reaction when she died.

Sudden muscular stiffening associated with violent deaths under extreme physical and emotional stress, known as cadaveric spasm, could explain this roughly 3,500-year-old mummy’s silent scream, researchers report August 2 in Frontiers in Medicine.

The Screaming Woman’s cause of death remains undetermined, so a cadaveric spasm cannot be confirmed as the reason for her alarming look. But new evidence of the care and cost involved in preparing this woman’s mummified body indicates that embalmers did not simply neglect to close her mouth, say radiologist Sahar Saleem of Cairo University and anthropologist Samia El-Merghani, conservator of mummies at Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Cairo.

Excavations in 1935 and 1936 found the unnamed woman’s mummy in a burial chamber for relatives of Senmut, an architect during Queen Hatschepsut’s reign from 1479 B.C. to 1458 B.C.

In the new study, CT scans showed that the woman’s internal organs had not been removed, in contrast to typical Egyptian embalming methods (SN: 8/31/23). Microscopic and chemical analyses conducted by Saleem and El-Merghani found that imported juniper resin and frankincense applied to the skin had kept the body well-preserved.

Further care was taken to dye the woman’s natural hair with juniper resin and henna, the study finds. The mummy also wore a braided wig made from date palm fibers that had been stiffened and dyed black with a mineral treatment. The color black represented youth to ancient Egyptians, Saleem says.