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The University of Sydney acquired the coffin
150 years ago and a series of academics incorrectly classified
it as empty.
Their error was only discovered by chance late last year when
more recent academics removed the lid to the coffin and
discovered the tattered remains of a mummy.
The discovery offers scientists an almost unique opportunity to
test the cadaver.
"We can start asking some intimate questions that those bones
will hold around pathology, about diet, about diseases, about
the lifestyle of that person - how they lived and died," said
Jamie Fraser, senior curator at the Nicholson Museum at the
University of Sydney.
Whole mummies are typically left intact, limiting their
scientific benefits.
Adding to the potential rewards is the possibility that the
remains are those of a distinguished woman of an age where
little is known, Fraser said.
Hieroglyphs show the original occupant of the coffin was a
female called Mer-Neith-it-es, who academics believe was a high
priestess in 600 BC, the last time Egypt was ruled by native
Egyptians.
"We know from the hieroglyphs that Mer-Neith-it-es worked in the
Temple of Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess," Fraser said.
"There are some clues in hieroglyphs and the way the
mummification has been done and the style of the coffin that
tell us about how this Temple of Sekhmet may have worked."
(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Paul Tait)
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