Egyptian mummy discovered with bubonic plague rewrites history

Scientists have discovered an over 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy who may have died of the bubonic plague — marking the first case of the disease outside of the Eurasian continent.

The breakthrough discovery provides “molecular evidence for the presence of plague in ancient Egypt,” the researchers wrote in their abstract.

Researchers determined this after examining the corpse, which is housed in Italy’s Egyptian Museum of Turin, and dates back 3,290 years to the late Bronze Age, Popular Science reported.

while experts have long postulated about the plague’s footprint in Egypt for decades, there hasn’t been solid evidence for it — until now. Getty Images

Analysis of the mummy’s bone tissue revealed traces of Y. Pestis — bubonic plague bacteria — DNA, meaning that the disease had reached an advanced stage when the victim perished, IFL Science reported. However, it’s unclear if this was an isolated case or part of a widespread epidemic in the region.

Also known as the Black Death, the bubonic plague is one of history’s most infamous diseases in history. It is spread when humans are bitten by fleas that piggyback on rodents

When the microbes infect a human host, they ravage the lymphatic system, causing lymph nodes in the groin, underarm, and neck to balloon into swollen masses called buboes (hence the name).

A depiction of a plague hospital in Vienna while the city was being besieged by the Turks in 1679. Bettmann Archive

The disease only snowballs from there, causing complications including seizures, vomiting blood, internal bleeding, and death.

Bubonic plague is most often associated with the notorious epidemic in 14th-century Europe — where it killed around 25 million people between 1347 and 1351 — as well as subsequent outbreaks in China, Mongolia and India.

And while experts have long postulated about the plague’s footprint in Egypt for decades, there hasn’t been solid evidence for it — until now.

In 2004, scientists found millennia-old fleas at a repository on the banks of the Nile River.

There was also a 3,500-year-old Egyptian medical document describing a bubo filled with petrified pus, suggesting that the plague rats may have spread throughout the world by boat.

The mummy is housed at the Egyptian Museum of Turin in Turin, Italy. Getty Images

However, the Black Death’s existence wasn’t able to be confirmed without DNA evidence like the kind found in the mummy.

The scientists hope their discovery will inspire others to conduct further studies and hopefully shed light on the Egyptian iteration’s “possible modes of transmission and pathology.”