The ancient remains of an unborn fetus found in the headless mummy of an Egyptian teenager shows she died while giving birth to twins, a new study confirms.
When archaeologists excavated and unwrapped the mummy in 1908, they discovered the bandaged body of a fetus and the remains of a placenta wedged between the girl's legs. Field notes from the time reveal the researchers concluded the fetus was related to the mummified female — a girl between 14 and 17 years old who lived in ancient Egypt sometime between the Late Dynastic (from around 712 to 332 B.C.) and Coptic period (between A.D 395 and 642). Researchers incised the mother's abdomen and found the fetus' skull stuck in the birth canal, indicating the girl had died from complications during childbirth.
