Abstract
The Nepthtys Project aims to carry out multidisciplinary research on ancient Egyptian mummified human remains in Hungary. The project involves the Hungarian Natural History Museum, the Aurél Török Collection of the Eötvös Lóránd University of Sciences, and the Semmelweis Medical History Museum of the Hungarian National Museum. During this research, the remains were subjected to anthropological and imaging investigations, organic and inorganic chemical analysis, skin, hair and textile microscopic investigation, as well as radiocarbon isotope dating. The results were surprising: the mummy fragments involved in the project represent a wide time interval, from the end of the New Kingdom to the early Middle Ages. For instance, based on the sample’s chronological age, it can be argued that it includes some false findings. During the palaeopathological examination, we identified a male skull, which had probably experienced blunt force trauma, and a female skull with a metatarsal bone inserted into the nasal cavity, presumably for aesthetic reasons. Not to mention that some fragmented crania of children show endocranial lesions, with a probable identification of infectious disease(s) still ongoing. In the case of a female’s right leg, the specimen is badly bowed, and arched with a measured height of 37 mm. The tarso-metatarsal line is convex and the axes are misaligned. The identification of some materials used during the mummification procedure became possible due to the organic chemical analysis and, as a result of the microscopic analysis, ancient pollen residues were detected between the layers of the bandage. In some cases, inorganic chemical analysis highlighted increased lead content of the bone samples, but the causative agent of this phenomenon is still under investigation.