Sudanese Campaign to Recover Mummy of ‘Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt’ from Vatican

The mummy of Amani Ridis
The mummy of Amani Ridis
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Sudanese Campaign to Recover Mummy of ‘Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt’ from Vatican

The mummy of Amani Ridis
The mummy of Amani Ridis

Sudanese and archeological experts renewed their calls for returning from the Vatican Museum in Rome the mummy of the “Kandaka”, the god Amun’s wife (Amani Ridis), who was addressed as "Her Highness the wife of God Amun.”

Muahannad Othman, an archaeological researcher who is part of the campaign for retrieving the queen, says that the Vatican Museum has been asked that the princess's mummy be returned to the Sudanese National Museum.

Othman explained that the campaign, along with its initiative to retrieve the mummy, is trying to figure out how it got to the Vatican Museum, especially since it falls into the twenty-fifth sequence of the families of the Pharaonic kingdoms, and is a religious symbol of the worship of the god Amon.

Its presence at the Vatican is bewildering despite the stories that the mummy was gifted by the British colonialists.

He went on to say that the campaign spreads awareness about the history of the Nubian kingdoms of Sudan, and that he is awaiting the signing of the Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites to recover the mummy and other Sudanese monuments in museums around the world.

"We need an official document that supports the campaign because some laws prevent the recovery of monuments after 50 years."

Munawar Sayed Ahmed, an archaeological activist, called on Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums to endorse the campaign, plan for retrieving the Sudanese artifacts and antiques scattered across museums in the world, communicate with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and sign the 1977 agreement, which allows for recovering of monuments upon request.

He added: “The National Corporation should find out which international museums hold Sudanese monuments. The Louvre Museum, for example, includes 340 artifacts and antiques.”

Director of the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums Ghalia Jar El-Nab told Asharq Al-Awsat that networks of experienced foreign archaeologists facilitated the theft of antiquities.

While much was lost during the colonial period (1898 - 1956), "the great disaster hit with the Antiquities Law of 1999, which allowed foreign archaeological missions to share the discovered antiquities with Sudan."



What the Shell: Scientists Marvel as NZ Snail Lays Egg from Neck 

This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
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What the Shell: Scientists Marvel as NZ Snail Lays Egg from Neck 

This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)

A rare New Zealand snail has been filmed for the first time squeezing an egg from its neck, delighting scientists trying to save the critically endangered meat-eating mollusk.

Threatened by coal mining in New Zealand's South Island, a small population of the Mount Augustus snail was transplanted from its forest habitat almost 20 years ago to live in chilled containers tended by humans.

Little is known about the reproduction of the shellbound critters, which can grow so large that New Zealand's conservation department calls them "giants of the snail world".

A conservation ranger said she was gobsmacked to witness a captive snail laying an egg from its neck -- a reproductive act well documented in other land snails but never filmed for this species.

"It's remarkable that in all the time we've spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we've seen one lay an egg," conservation ranger Lisa Flanagan said this week.

"We caught the action when we were weighing the snail. We turned it over to be weighed and saw the egg just starting to emerge from the snail."

Conservation department scientist Kath Walker said hard shells made it difficult to mate -- so some snails instead evolved a special "genital pore" under their head.

The Mount Augustus snail "only needs to peek out of its shell to do the business," she said.

The long-lived snails can grow to the size of a golf ball and their eggs can take more than a year to hatch.

They eat earthworms, according to New Zealand's conservation department, which they slurp up "like we eat spaghetti".

Conservation efforts suffered a drastic setback in 2011, when a faulty temperature gauge froze 800 Mount Augustus snails to death inside their climate-controlled containers.

Fewer than 2,000 snails currently live in captivity, while small populations have been re-established in the New Zealand wild.