It may have been an ax hit from behind by a soldier, and not a simple stab wound, that killed Takabuti 2,600 years ago, the woman of the famous Egyptian mummy preserved in the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
This is suggested by the results of the latest scientific investigations published in a book by Egyptologist Rosalie David of the University of Manchester and bioarchaeologist Eileen Murphy of Queen's University in Belfast.
DNA analysis, CT scans, radiographs and radiocarbon dating are just some of the techniques that the researchers subjected to the mummy in order to reconstruct its last moments of life.
The woman, married and from a high-ranking family in the ancient city of Thebes, was in good health when she was killed between the ages of 20 and 30.
The morphology of the wound and the angle at which the murder weapon penetrated the body suggest that Takabuti was killed not by a stab wound as hypothesized in the past, but by a military-type ax with a semicircular blade about 7 long. centimeters.
The weapon was supplied to the Assyrian army as well as to the Egyptian one, so the killer was probably a soldier.
While the woman was trying to escape, the man would have hit her from behind, throwing the ax with his arms folded, in order to impart maximum force: the injuries caused to the chest would have caused an almost instant death.
“In a way it is consoling to know that Takabuti's death, however violent, was swift and did not cause her prolonged suffering,” says Rosalie David.
“But the ancient Egyptians could have reached middle age, so the tragedy of the death of such a young woman is bleak.
We have worked so hard on her that it's hard not to feel close to her as a person.
And she was probably loved by her family too: her body was treated with great care after her death, her hair was cut and carefully curled and styled ”.