FEATURE - Ulster Museum's Mummy Was Murdered with a Battle Axe — and not a Knife
John Clarke
When Queen’s University Belfast Professor Eileen Murphy was taken to the Ulster Museum at just nine years of age, she first set eyes on Takabuti, Ulster Museum’s resident Mummy. It was the beginning of a fascination that would last a lifetime.
But she recalls the “frustration” she felt at the lack of information accompanying the display. Who was Takabuti, and how had she found her way to Belfast?
Now, years later, Professor Murphy has gone full-circle. She is the co-editor of new book, The Life and Times of Takabuti in Ancient Egypt: Investigating the Belfast Mummy, which reveals how the mummy was really murdered thousands of years after her death.
Takabuti was most likely killed with a battle axe rather than a knife as previously suggested.
Professor Murphy and her team used “modern techniques” to find out the new information and the book is the culmination of several years of work by academics both in the University of Manchester and Queen’s University Belfast, as well as experts at the National Museum of Northern Ireland.
Now a Professor of Bioarcheology at Queen’s, Professor Murphy describes the book as “important” and is glad to be part of a project that can finally satisfy visitors’ thirst for knowledge.
“It means that if people are really fascinated with the summary information, they can then pop down to the shop and get the book with the full story as we can tell it using modern techniques.”
The “modern techniques” that Professor Murphy speaks of here are the X rays and CT scans that had been used back in 2006 to create a facial reconstruction of Takabuti.
After this, the project lay dormant for a number of years until it was revived again in 2018. This time, newer technology was available to them. The Manchester team made use of proteomics, a way of studying tissue samples that is normally used in clinical work and which was trialled on the Mummy for the first time.
Meanwhile, Professor Murphy’s Belfast team used the software to study the skeletal remains of the mummy, and analysis of the tissue led to a shocking discovery: Takabuti’s heart. Though the original X-ray identified an object next to her head which was believed to be her heart, the new imaging shows that Takabuti’s heart remains intact inside her body.
The item next to her head was in fact a piece of Egyptian packing material which was used to plug a wound there.
Speaking on theories as to who could have killed Takabuti, Professor Murphy notes that she lived in a “tumultuous time” when Egypt was being invaded from the north and the south. The type of wounds inflicted would suggest that it might have been an Assyrian soldier, but since this type of concave axe was customarily used by Egyptians as well, it is difficult to rule anything out.
Had she been discovered in her tomb, hieroglyphs might have offered something of an explanation.
Like so many other mummies, however, she was removed to be sold to the wealthy Westerners who sought exotic souvenirs to bring back from their Grand Tours.
Fortunately, in Takabuti’s case, she was picked up by Thomas Greg, who contributed his find to the Belfast Natural Historical Society which has allowed her to be preserved.
But it is not just her murder that this book focuses on. The work aims to give an overview of Takabuti’s journey both in life and in death, and Professor Murphy said: “We really tried to tell the full story of her existence over the past 186 years as well as what happened to her 2,500 years ago”.
The limited opportunity to remove Takabuti from her casing presented a “logistical nightmare” that Dr David Tosh, Research Coordinator at National Museums NI, worked around by turning the museum into a makeshift laboratory. Nonetheless, the discoveries that this operation has led to have gone a long way, and the comprehensive understanding that this has afforded Takabuti is more than can be said for most Ancient Egyptians.
“It has given a very complete picture of her. Not all mummies would have that,” added Professor Murphy.
Though this marks the end of her relations with Egyptology for now, she is fiercely proud of the project.
“It was a real privilege to be part of the team that has done this”.
Professor Murphy and her researcher colleagues are hosting a free online seminar on May 8 where they will be discussing the new book in more depth. You can register for it here.
John Clarke is a Master's student in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at Queen's University Belfast.