Eerie Egyptian mummy who suffered agonising fate reveals terrifying ‘Black Death’ secret for the first time in millennia
AN EERIE Egyptian mummy who died a horror death has revealed to scientists an unbelievable Black Death secret.
It is believed that the 3,290-year-old embalmed remains belonged to a male who suffered horrific symptoms before dying – potentially from the bubonic plague.
The oldest confirmed case of the plague outside of Eurasia has been detected in the ancient Egyptian mummy.
The mummy revealed that the deadly bubonic plague circulated in North Africa thousands of years before the Black Death devastated Europe.
The Yersinia pestis infection is infamous for causing rapid and widespread deaths across Europe.
But scientists have discovered its presence dates back even further than they thought.
No physical proof has ever been able to indicate that the deadly illness outside of Europe and Asia.
But the newly-studied mummy has allowed experts to develop a deeper understanding on the disease in North Africa and help to clarify how it circulated over time.
In the last few years, studies have uncovered traces of Y pestis DNA in prehistoric corpses.
This indicates that the pathogen and the horror disease existed and was in circulation thousands of years before the historic pandemic.
All of the ancient examples, however, have come from Europe and Asia, with some evidence of infection visible in 5,000-year-old skeletons in Russia.
But the ancient Egyptian mummy kept at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy, has now revealed that the plague was also present in North Africa at the dawn of the Bronze Age.
The mummy contained traces of Y pestis DNA in both the bone tissue and intestinal content.
This breakthrough discovery suggests the disease had progressed to the advanced stages when the infected person died.
Researchers for the study said: “This is the first reported prehistoric Y pestis genome outside Eurasia providing molecular evidence for the presence of plague in ancient Egypt, although we cannot infer how widespread the disease was during this time.”
Despite there not being a lot of understanding over the prevalence of the Black Death in ancient Egypt, previous studies have suggested about possible outbreaks along the river Nile at the time.
Like over 20 years ago, experts discovered fleas at an archeological village in Amarna – where the workers who built Tutankhamun’s tomb once resided.
As fleas are what carried the plague predominantly, experts started to think the disease could have existed in ancient Egypt.
To add to this, a 3,500-year-old medical text dubbed the Ebers Papyrus described a disease at the time that “produced a bubo, and the pus has petrified”.
Some other researchers therefore believe the plague may have come from fleas that lived on Nile rats.
They then crossed over to the black rats that went off on ancient ships – consequently carrying the horrific Black Death across the world.
But this theory has lacked enough evidence to prove that the disease was present in ancient Egypt.
Now the breakthrough discovery from the mummy’s DNA could prove this theory to be true.
History of the Black Death
The Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague which struck Europe and Asia in the 1300s.
It killed more than 20 million people in Europe.
Scientists now know that the plague was spread by a bacillus known as yersina pestis.
The bacteria can travel through the air as well as through the bites of infected fleas and rats.
Bubonic plague can cause swelling of the lymph notes. If untreated it could spread to the blood and lungs.
Other symptoms included fever, vomiting and chills.
Physicians relied on treatments such as boil-lancing to bathing in vinegar as they tried to treat people with the plague.
Some believed that the Black Death was a “divine punishment” – a form of retribution for sins against God.