I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from listening to Rosalie David talk about her work on the study of ancient Egypt today on Radio 4.
"Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt.
In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the vast majority of Egyptologists regarded mummies as unimportant sources of information about life in ancient Egypt. Instead they focussed on interpreting hieroglyphic inscriptions, the written record in papyrus documents and archaeological remains and artefacts. Rosalie David proved that the traditionalists were quite wrong.
Rosalie tells Jim Al-Khalili about her journey from classics and ancient history to biomedicine, including some of her adventures in Egypt in the 1960s. She talks about some of her most significant research projects, and the 21st Century forensic detective work on the mummy of a young woman which revealed a gruesome murder 3,000 years ago...
Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Andrew Luck-Baker*
And along the way I was reunited with mummy 1770 which my Wikipedia reminds "me was an ancient Egyptian female mummy.
The specimen was found in a sarcophagus by Rosalie David, and was approximately 13 or 14 years old at the time of her death. The mummy's legs were not present, and were replaced by wooden planks. Her feet also consisted of sandals filled with mud and reeds, with the tips being substituted for toes. The fingernails and reed tips had golden coverings, which suggested that she lived in a wealthy family".
And any one who was in Manchester in 1975 with an interest in Egyptology will remember.
And that is it.
Location; Radio 4
Picture; faded poster on a wet day at Chorlton Bus Station, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Rosalie David on the science of Egyptian mummies, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002305z
**Mummy 1770, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1770_(mummy)
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