Forgotten Egyptian Mummy Head in Lithuania Reveals New Details of Ancient Embalming

A multidisciplinary study of a long-neglected Egyptian mummy head preserved at the National Museum of Lithuania has revealed new information about the individual’s age, health, mummification treatment and chronology, while also reopening questions about how the remains reached Europe.

The specimen was examined in 2025 as part of the Lithuanian Mummy Project. Researchers used a combination of visual examination, computed tomography (CT), three-dimensional reconstruction, radiocarbon dating and chemical analysis, allowing them to investigate the remains largely without damaging them.

The head consists of the cranium and mandible, portions of the neck and the first four cervical vertebrae, together with fragments of original linen wrappings impregnated with resin. These features confirm that the remains underwent authentic Egyptian mummification treatment.

CT analysis indicates that the individual was an adult male who probably died between about 25 and 40 years of age. The skull retained several features used for sex estimation, while the fully erupted third molars, open cranial sutures and mature dentition helped establish the approximate age range.

The teeth provided some of the clearest evidence about the man’s life.

Researchers observed extensive wear across both upper and lower teeth, together with dental disease. A major lesion around the upper left first molar was interpreted as an infectious process, while other evidence included tooth loss before death and carious damage.

The severe wear is consistent with a coarse and abrasive diet of the kind often documented among ancient Egyptian populations, where food could contain small amounts of sand or stone particles introduced during grinding and preparation.

The precise cause of death remains unknown. The study notes that the advanced dental abscess could potentially have contributed to poor health and might, in principle, have become serious, although the available evidence cannot establish it as the direct cause of death.

The CT scans also revealed important evidence about the embalming procedure.

The brain had been completely removed through the nose. This was achieved by perforating the cribriform plate separating the nasal cavity from the cranial space. Unusually, the scans suggest that there may have been two separate openings rather than the more commonly described single access point.

After removal of the brain, however, the cranial cavity was left empty rather than being filled with resin or other packing material. The eye sockets and mouth, by contrast, contained linen or thread-like material, probably intended to help maintain the appearance of the face after the tissues had dried and contracted.

These techniques are broadly consistent with mummification practices documented among non-elite individuals during Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period, although the researchers stress that considerable variation existed in embalming practices and that social status cannot be determined with absolute certainty from the technique alone.

Radiocarbon dating provided the strongest evidence for the mummy’s age.

A chemically cleaned piece of linen wrapping produced a calibrated date of approximately 816–753 BCE, placing it within the Third Intermediate Period and, more specifically, around the time of Egypt’s 23rd Dynasty. Because the researchers followed a non-destructive approach, they dated the textile rather than taking a sample directly from the mummy’s tissue or bone.

Chemical analysis of material associated with the wrappings revealed an organic embalming substance containing fatty acids compatible with vegetable or animal oils, most likely of vegetable origin.

The mummy’s dark appearance initially raised the possibility that bitumen had been used, but the chemical analyses could not confirm its presence. Some results even raise the possibility that a dark material resembling coal tar may have been applied much later, perhaps while the head was already in a museum collection.

The original source of the embalming resin also remains uncertain. Researchers detected a compound associated with ancient pine resin, but the full group of chemical markers expected from pine or other known resins was absent, preventing a firm identification.

The history of the mummy after leaving Egypt is almost as complex as the scientific findings.

Archival evidence indicates that Russian physician Ivan Churilov acquired the head in 1886. He is known to have travelled in Egypt and Sudan between 1886 and 1890, during a period when Egyptian antiquities circulated widely through dealers and other commercial channels.

No surviving record, however, explains exactly where or from whom he obtained the head.

In 1936, Churilov sold it to the State Museum of the History of Religion in St. Petersburg, where it was catalogued with another embalmed head and reportedly attributed to Memphis.

In 1976, it was transferred to the Museum of Atheism in Soviet Lithuania. Following Lithuanian independence, it eventually entered the National Museum of Lithuania. The whereabouts of the second mummy head once associated with it remain unknown.

The traditional claim that the head came specifically from Memphis is difficult to verify.

The researchers argue that the term may have referred broadly to the Memphite region rather than the ancient city itself. Large formal cemeteries of the relevant period are not well established within Memphis proper, whereas nearby Saqqara, the principal necropolis of ancient Memphis, was extensively excavated and frequently looted during the 19th century.

The authors therefore consider it plausible that the mummy originated from an undocumented burial at Saqqara or elsewhere in the wider Memphite region and was later sold with the general label “Memphis.” They emphasize, however, that this remains speculative and that the head’s precise archaeological provenance cannot now be reconstructed.

Beyond the individual findings, the study highlights the scientific value of human remains that have spent decades largely forgotten in museum storage.

By combining CT scanning, 3D reconstruction, radiocarbon dating and chemical analysis, the researchers were able to recover biological and cultural information without significantly altering the specimen.

The mummy head therefore offers not only a glimpse into the health and funerary treatment of one Egyptian man who lived nearly 2,800 years ago, but also an example of how modern non-invasive techniques can restore scientific and cultural context to poorly documented archaeological collections.