1. Age of smallpox
In the crypt of a Lithuanian church (Lithuania, a European country), there is still the grave of a toddler, which contains the oldest traces of the virus that causes smallpox (smallpox virus). ). This is the first human disease to be eradicated by vaccination, but its origin, especially its age, is still debated.
For a long time, people thought the lifespan of the smallpox virus was at least a millennium (1,000 years), the culprit that caused the Egyptian population to shrink terribly. The above discovery in Lithuania went against the above assumption. Through analysis, scientists concluded that the lifespan of smallpox virus is only a few hundred years. Comparing the virus strain on the mummy of the 360-year-old child mentioned above with all known mutations, scientists came to the conclusion that they share a common ancestor with the virus that first appeared around 1999. 1588 – 1645. If smallpox were thousands of years old, there should have been a significant increase in the number of strains, but this diversity was non-existent. Some Egyptian mummies dating back thousands of years also had notable traces but were more prone to measles and chickenpox.
2. Strange burial customs
A decade ago, scientists unearthed a mummy of a 3,000-year-old couple buried in the prehistoric village of Cladh Hallan, in Scotland. Things became odd when it was discovered that the woman’s jaw protruded outward, seemingly out of proportion to the bones of a normal person. DNA testing has revealed a horror story unprecedented in history, both ancient and modern.
The pair were pieced together from parts belonging to six unrelated people. The transplanted organs for the woman have the same date, but the man (husband) died at different times, even hundreds of years apart. Because of this, even burial takes centuries to complete. First, they were placed in a peat swamp until they became mummies, then burial materials were taken for the man, buried in the village of Cladh Hallan, 300 – 600 years later. Despite careful research on a number of other issues such as: fetal position, soft tissue destroyed by geology, customs, geographical factors… scientists still have not found an answer. words about this mysterious burial ritual or custom.
3. Detection of genetic subgroup C1bi
In 1985, a group of climbers accidentally discovered human remains on Argentina’s Aconcagua peak. This is a child who died in the 5th century. It turned out to be an Inca boy who was sacrificed to the gods. The altitude at which this scapegoat child was found was about 5,300m above sea level, very dry and cold, so the body of this 7-year-old child was “mummified” almost perfectly.
The body’s well-preserved condition helped geneticists extract the entire mitochondrial genome. According to DNA, the boy belongs to a genetic group called C1b, an ancient Paleoindian lineage, dating back more than 18,000 years ago. However, upon careful analysis, this boy’s DNA did not match any available subgroups of the population at that time. Researchers have created a new subgroup, called C1bi, which is a database for many members of this subgroup that have been lost. The results found only four, three of these belonged to modern Peru and Bolivia and the last one belonged to the Inca Wari empire of Peru. It is estimated that about 90% of native South Americans died during the Spanish conquest. This genetic destruction makes the C1bi genetic subgroup increasingly rare, a secret that was decoded after the discovery of the above-mentioned Inca baby mummy.
4. Since when have prosthetics been used?
Looking at personal artifacts, it can be difficult to distinguish between professional and aesthetic items. This was also true of the ancient Egyptians, in whom burial preparations often included prosthetic body parts. Recently, the University of Manchester, UK, successfully developed prosthetic toe replicas for volunteers lacking big toes. This replica prototype was copied from two sets of prosthetic toes of ancient Egyptians. In modern times, these are humanity’s first medical and artistic works found in ancient mummies.
The ancient Egyptian’s first finger set included cartonnage (a material used to create masks before burial, before 600 BC), wood and leather (950 – 710 BC). The second set of toes was found on the feet of a mummy in Luxor. The traces left on these fake toes show that the toes were used for a long time, like their real meaning, not as burial tools. Volunteers who were fitted with these prosthetic toes did not need the Egyptian sandal-like implants. The study also revealed that both sets of artificial fingers were used successfully by the Egyptians, without the paralyzing pressure caused by shoes.
5. The brain is intact when embalmed
A 3,200-year-old Egyptian mummy named Hatason has aroused the special interest of modern science after just one scan. This is the mummy of a woman who died around 1700-1000 BC, when her brain was still intact during mummification.
Adding material inside a cranial cavity that still contains gray matter is unthinkable. Strangely, this woman’s skull seemed to be stuffed with black sand. It is possible that this woman was a citizen used for experiments by a mortician (funeral specialist). And it’s hard to say, because so far there are very few mummies from the same period, so people don’t have much information to compare, even if determining gender is still difficult thanks to the pelvis and skull so posterity can know. this is a woman.
The coffin described this as a woman wearing standard citizen’s clothes, but there was no way to further prove this woman’s identity. The mummy, currently on display in San Francisco, was brought out of Egypt in the early 19th century, after being purchased by the Americans.
