The circumstances of the death of a brave Egyptian king ... are revealed by CT scans thousands of years later
The research was conducted by Zahi Hawass and Sahar Selim
An Egyptian scientific research has shed light on the role of modern medical technology in uncovering the circumstances of the death of a king in ancient Egypt.
The research revolves around examining the mummy of King Seknen Ra-Taa II by CT scan, which was conducted by archaeologist and former Minister of Antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass and Dr. Sahar Selim, Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said, in a statement yesterday, that the research was published by Frontiers in Medicine magazine.
Pharaoh Sqnan Ra Ta'a II, nicknamed al-Shuja ', ruled southern Egypt during the occupation of the country by the Hyksos, who seized the delta in northern Egypt for a century (1650-1550 BC).
The second mummy of Sqnin Ra Ta’a was discovered in the Deir el-Bahari cache in 1881 and examined for the first time at that time. The mummy was also studied by x-ray in the 1960s.
According to the research, these examinations indicated that the deceased king had suffered serious head injuries, but there were no wounds in the rest of the body.
Theories differed as to the cause of the death of the king, so some believed that the king had been killed in a battle, perhaps at the hands of the King of the Hyksos himself, and others indicated that Seqnen Ra Taa II may have been killed in a conspiracy while he slept in his palace, and others suggested that the mummification may have taken place in a hurry away from the royal mummification workshop. For the poor condition of the mummy.
Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem presented, in their research, a new interpretation of the events before and after the king's death, based on two- and three-dimensional CT images, which were installed using advanced computer technologies. The deformation of the arms shows that it seems that the second Sqnan Ra-Taa'a has already been captured on the battlefield. His hands were cuffed behind his back, which prevented him from stopping the fierce attack from his face.
"This indicates that Seknen Ra was really on the front line with his soldiers, risking his life with his soldiers to liberate Egypt," said a professor of radiology at Cairo University and a specialist in ancient radiology, Dr. Sahar Selim.
A CT scan of the mummy of Sagnin Ra Taa II revealed minute details of the head injuries, including wounds that were not discovered in previous examinations, as they were subtly hidden by the embalmers.
The research included a study of various Hyksos weapons preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and included an ax, its war, and several daggers.
The two researchers confirmed that these weapons are identical with the wounds of Sqnen Ra Ta'a II, and the results indicate that he was killed by multiple Hyksos attackers who killed him from different angles and with different weapons, so the killing of Sqnen Ra was a ceremonial execution.
The tomography study also determined that the king was nearly 40 years old at his death.
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