Emily Chan
An analysis of her skeletal remains revealed that she likely died before the age of 40 and had a congenital defect in one foot.
The researchers also found a canopic jar designed to hold the mummy’s internal organs and two painted wooden figurines.
One of the standing statuettes might represent Idi. The other figurine seemed to depict a woman marching.
Idi’s father served as the governor of Asyut during the reign of Senusret I, the second pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt.
He ruled from 1971 to 1926 B.C.E. and was associated with the height of the 12th Dynasty’s stability and power.
“This new discovery in Asyut will add more to what we know about the Middle Kingdom, which is all too often overshadowed by the earlier Old Kingdom ‘Pyramid Age’ and the later New Kingdom, with its big-name pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and [Ramesses II],” said Joann Fletcher, a professor with the Department of Archaeology at the University of York in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study.
Over the past 130 years, many tombs and artifacts have been unearthed from Asyut during questionable excavations.
Further excavation work and analysis of the recent remains will continue, and they will receive official documentation and publication.
