17 June, 2019 - 18:59 ashley cowie
Were These Ancient Egyptian Mummies Chemical Or Natural Blondes?
Egyptian noblewoman Tjuyu and her husband Yuya were important figures in Amenhotep III's court and she is believed to have died in 1375 BC. Most widely known as being the great-grandmother of legendary pharaoh Tutankhamun, her tomb was discovered in 1905 and a Channel 5 documentary The Nile: Egypt's Great River , presented by British historian Bettany Hughes, has filmed a rare opening at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The episode aired on Friday night and showed a team of Egyptologists carefully lifting the lid from Tjuyu's tomb revealing what a Daily Star article called "her incredibly-well preserved body." Bettany expounded "She's so tiny and so perfect." A 2016 Ancient Origins article describes Tjuyu as "the mother of Queen Tiye , a key women in the Theban court and it is thought that she might also be the "mother of the pharaoh Ay." Thus, she would be Nefertiti and Mutnodjimet's grandmother.
Colors of Death
On the show Egyptologist Salima Ikram explained that the cloths protruding from her eye sockets were made to look like eyes so that she could "see into the afterlife" and her body was so intact that it was even possible to see the sandals she was wearing while being mummified.
Tjuyu's feet were remarkably preserved. (YouTube Screenshot)
Bettany noticed something strange about Tjuyu's mummified corpse; rather than having dark brown hair, like the vast majority of other Ancient Egyptian mummies, she had "strawberry-blonde hair." This somewhat bizarre phenomena was explained away by Egyptologist Ikram who said that it is unclear how her hair got to be this color, saying "We're not 100% sure [if that is her original hair ]."
One of the reasons offered for the color of hair is the use of 'natrons' in the mummification processes . This naturally occurring mixture of 'sodium carbonate decahydrate', which was also an ancient household insecticide , was primarily used for making leather and to bleach clothing. This implies Tjuyu's true hair color might have been deliberately lightened to give it a blonde-look or may have occurred accidentally through mummification.
Mummy of Yuyu also had blond hair. (YouTube Screenshot)
Blond Egyptians
In the last section when I referred to "the vast majority of other Ancient Egyptian mummies" having dark brown hair, well, I chose those words very carefully because according to Dr. Janet Davey from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Australia, some ancient Egyptians were naturally blond and sometimes red haired .
Mummy of 19th dynasty King Rameses II with reddish-blond hair. (YouTube Screenshot)
An article recently published by The Sydney Morning Herald explains that most researchers claim different colors of the mummy hair resulted from the chemical interactions in the mummification process itself (natrons). However, Dr. Davey undertook a series of "innovative experiments" covering "16 hair samples from Egyptian people " in the salty ash for 40 days. Guess what? Not a single change in hair color was observed.
Dr. Davey is convinced that there were fair-haired Egyptians but finding fair-haired mummies is "very rare" and this is why Egyptologists previously believed that lighter hair color was created during the mummification process. Davey suggests that these blond haired folk lived in Egypt during the Graeco-Roman Period (332 BC – 395 AD).
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Dr. Davey's experiments are claimed to prove that fair hair is was natural to some ancient Egyptians, such as Tjuyu. (YouTube Screenshot)
On December 14, 2014 Ancient Origins reported on a remarkable discovery in Fag el-Gamous necropolis, which lies along the eastern edge of the Fayum depression near Seila in Egypt. Dating to the time when the Roman or Byzantine Empire controlled Egypt, from the 1st to the 7th century AD, this enormous cemetery, believed to contain over one million burials, was excavated over three decades by archaeologists at Brigham Young University in Utah who among their discoveries unearthed "blond and redheaded mummies."
Top image: Tjuyu was discovered in 1905 with blond hair. Source: YouTube Screenshot .
By Ashley Cowie
Tjuyu
Amenhotep III
King Rameses II
Ashley was raised in Wick, a small fishing village in the county of Caithness on the north east coast of Scotland, and he went on to study filmmaking in Glasgow. In his early-20s he began exploring ancient landscapes in the... Read More
tigritsa wrote on 29 June, 2019 - 08:56 Permalink
E1b1b is E-v13 and is exclusively a South-Eastern European (Balkan) Y (male) DNA with highest numbers on continental Greece, Albania and Bulgaria – https://i.imgur.com/6K9BYeI.jpg , who are certainly with white features. The various versions of the Bulgarians' name – BəLGar/ BaLKar/ BəRGar/ BLəGar, as well as that of the previous Pre-Greek PeLasgi/ BeLastsi/ PeLest/ PhLeGyes/ BRiGes (remember the Irish fir BoLG from Thrace which first name acording to Stephanus Byzantinus was Aria, that is BRiGht from Sclavenic and Indo-European languages), who were of the Sea Peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean and Ancient Egypt, all mean white, bright, elevated, noble, thankful. J is a macrogroup and without more definite subscales is not indicative for a place of origin.
Truth Always Has More Than Two Sides To It
Where can I see Egyptian "mummification preserving perfectly divine black skin" ? Not everyone is a geneticist!!! What is MLI and STR in simple words? Where can I see this genetic evidence "they", the blond haired Egyptians in question, came from Southern Africa instead of South-Eastern Europe !!!???
Word to yo manner wrote on 19 June, 2019 - 00:35 Permalink
Mummification preserved their perfectly divine black skin as Tjuyu's is here, also King Tut her great grandchild's has jet black mummified skin..Mummified Greaco /Roman/have olive complexions 100 percent of the time.. Ancient Kemetian's written history, and genetic MLI, STR analyses provides empirical evidence they came
The Great Lakes region of Southern Africa..
Well, previous to becoming Western European, the Y (male) DNA was South-Eastern European (BaLKan) first. Have you heard of the Eire-ish founding nation fir BoLG/ VuLaG from Thrace!!! https://i.imgur.com/Lskxg8h.png E1b1b/ E-v13 and I2a1 are exclusively a South-Eastern European (Balkan) Y (male) DNA with highest numbers on continental Greece, Albania and Bulgaria, who are certainly with white features. The various versions of the Bulgarians' name – BəLGar/ BaLKar/ BəRGar/ BLəGar, as well as that of the previous Pre-Greek PeLasgi/ BeLastsi/ PeLest/ PhLeGyes/ BRiGes (remember the Irish fir BoLG from Thrace which first name acording to Stephanus Byzantinus was Aria, that is BRiGht from Sclavenic and Indo-European languages), who were of the Sea Peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean and Ancient Egypt, all mean white, bright, elevated, noble, thankful.
Can I see if "KEMET AND NUBIA WERE VERY BLACK!" ??? There is NO RACISM in science, only facts. The fact that someone in Ancient Egypt could have been from "WHITE" in several aspects South-Eastern Europe (the BaLKans) does not mean white people are the best. In fact there are good and bad people among all races. a BRiGht enLIGHTened mind does not depend on the race that much, though it is true that the major technological progress in the last centuries came from Europeans!, but on the conditions of upbringing during early childhood. If I child, no matter its race, is instructed in an intelligent way – that TRUTH ALWAYS HAS MORE THAN TWO SIDES, undersrtanding, compassion, fellowship togetherness, good-doing, reciprocity, тhat is all-embracing love, then any individual, no matter the race, has highest chances of developing their mind to higher vibrations and thus higher results in anything.
28 November, 2018 - 16:29 anand balaji
Bedazzling Treasures of Yuya and Tjuyu: Stunning Burial on a Par with Royalty – Part II
With their daughter, Tiye, married into the powerful ruling family of Egypt, Yuya and Tjuyu led a charmed life. With strong ties to their hometown Akhmin, Yuya seems to have participated actively in...
Read more about Bedazzling Treasures of Yuya and Tjuyu: Stunning Burial on a Par with Royalty – Part II
Bedazzling Treasures of Yuya and Tjuyu: K46 and the Golden Road to Nobility – Part I
Queen Tiye stands head and shoulders above all the Great Royal Wives of ancient Egypt. Though it is said that her background was that of a commoner, she rose to prominence mainly due to her...
Read more about Bedazzling Treasures of Yuya and Tjuyu: K46 and the Golden Road to Nobility – Part I