Emily Chan
The mummy showed no signs of embalming incisions, and its internal organs, including the liver, brain, and lungs, were intact.
The woman lived during the New Kingdom (1550 to 1069 B.C.E.), a period in which it was common to remove the internal organs of the deceased and preserve them in canopic jars.
Usually, only the heart was left in the body. The practice was not applied to the Screaming Woman. Yet, she was still remarkably well-preserved. According to Saleem, this could reflect another style of mummification.
It is estimated that the Screaming Woman was about five feet tall and was around 48-years-old when she died.
The cause of her death was unclear, but bone spurs on the vertebrae of her spine were detected, indicating that she suffered from mild arthritis. She was also missing a few teeth, which may have been extracted while she was alive.
Her wig was made from date palm fibers. It was then treated with albite, quartz, and magnetite crystals to stiffen the locks and maintain the black color.
A chemical analysis of her skin showed that she was embalmed with frankincense and the oil of juniper berries, expensive materials that would have been imported from places like East Africa, Southern Arabia, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Saleem suggested that the mummy’s facial expression was caused by a cadaveric spasm, a rare form of muscle stiffening that occurs after death and is associated with extreme physical or emotional stress.
After the Screaming Woman was discovered in 1935, she was taken to the Kasr Al Ainy School of Medicine in Cairo.
She was transferred to the Cairo Egyptian Museum in 1998. Her wooden coffin and rings have been on display in the Metropolitan Museum of New York since 1935.
