Egyptian mummy revealed the terrible secret of the "Black Death" (3 photos)

Mummy reveals deadly bubonic plague raged through North Africa thousands of years before Black Death swept Europe, study finds





An Egyptian mummy has become the key to solving the mystery of the Black Death. The embalmed remains, dated 3,290 years old, belonged to a man who died of bubonic plague. It turns out the deadly disease was circulating in North Africa thousands of years before it ravaged Europe.



Scientists have discovered that the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis has been around for much longer than they thought.

All of the ancient examples were from Europe and Asia, and evidence of infection was found in skeletons dating back 5,000 years. Until now, there had been no physical evidence that the deadly disease had spread beyond Eurasia.

However, a mummy housed in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy, has shed light on the spread of the plague in North Africa at the dawn of the Bronze Age.

The mummy contained traces of Y pestis DNA in both bone tissue and gut contents. This suggests that the pathogen was circulating for thousands of years before the pandemic of 1346-1353.



“This is the first time that the prehistoric genome of Yersinia pestis has been found outside of Eurasia. This discovery provides compelling molecular evidence of the existence of plague in ancient Egypt, although we cannot yet say how widespread it was at that time,” the experts noted.

More than 20 years ago, researchers discovered fleas in an archaeological village in Amarna, where workers who built Tutankhamun’s tomb once lived. Since fleas are the main carriers of the plague, scientists have suggested that the disease may have existed in ancient Egypt.

Additionally, a medical text known as the Ebers Papyrus, written 3,500 years ago, mentions a disease in which “a bubo forms and the pus becomes stony.”

Therefore, it is highly likely that the plague may have been caused by fleas that lived on Nile rats. They then moved on to black rats that made their way onto ships, thus spreading the Black Death throughout the world.