First Ever Ancient Egyptian Dressing Discovered

An international research team from Germany, Italy and the US have announced the first-ever discovery of an ancient Egyptian dressing. (International Journal of Paleopathology)
An international research team from Germany, Italy and the US have announced the first-ever discovery of an ancient Egyptian dressing. (International Journal of Paleopathology)
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First Ever Ancient Egyptian Dressing Discovered

An international research team from Germany, Italy and the US have announced the first-ever discovery of an ancient Egyptian dressing. (International Journal of Paleopathology)
An international research team from Germany, Italy and the US have announced the first-ever discovery of an ancient Egyptian dressing. (International Journal of Paleopathology)

An international research team from Germany, Italy and the US have announced the first-ever discovery of an ancient Egyptian dressing.

They found the “bandage-like structure” in a female child mummy, one of 21 child mummies included in the study. The International Journal of Paleopathology will publish the study in the volume that will be released in March. It published a summary on its website a few days ago.

In the summary, the researchers say that the treatment was reported in the Edwin Smith Papyrus, a medical text from ancient Egypt (ca. 1650–1550 BCE), but this is the first to “physically note an original ancient Egyptian dressing” in an Egyptian mummy.

The mummy is of a two-and-a-half to four year-old girl. Using computed tomography (CT) imaging, they were able to see a bandage-like structure at the left lower leg that is most likely a dressing of a skin lesion.

As the mummy was completely wrapped by thick layers of textile, the bandage is believed to be original.

The researchers also noticed that the dressing “overlies masses within the adjacent soft tissues, which are consistent with dried pus, thus indicating the individual had purulent cellulitis or abscess.”

Most of the 21 child mummies included in the study date back to the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE) and Roman Period (30 BCE–395 CE). They estimate that children’s ages at death ranged from around one to 12–14 years, with a mean of 4.8 years. According to their assessments, 12 of the children were male, and seven were female, while two of the children’s sex could not be determined. They also found radiological evidence of purulent infections in three of them.

Among the purulent infections found was purulent sinusitis in a child aged between nine and eleven (Ptolemaic–Roman Period), with the researchers coming to this conclusion based on CT imaging that demonstrated dried masses, especially in the basal parts of both maxillary sinuses.

The researchers also found a dried fluid level in the enlarged capsule of the right hip in the mummy of a two to three-year-old boy (1st–2nd century CE), likely indicating dried pus in septic arthritis.



These Canadian Rocks May Be the Oldest on Earth

A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)
A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)
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These Canadian Rocks May Be the Oldest on Earth

A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)
A close-up view of metagabbroic rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, that are 4.16 billion years old is seen in this photograph released on June 26, 2025. (Jonathan O'Neil/Handout via Reuters)

Scientists have identified what could be the oldest rocks on Earth from a rock formation in Canada.

The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt has long been known for its ancient rocks — plains of streaked gray stone on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in Quebec. But researchers disagree on exactly how old they are.

Work from two decades ago suggested the rocks could be 4.3 billion years old, placing them in the earliest period of Earth's history. But other scientists using a different dating method contested the finding, arguing that long-ago contaminants were skewing the rocks' age and that they were actually slightly younger at 3.8 billion years old.

In the new study, researchers sampled a different section of rock from the belt and estimated its age using the previous two dating techniques — measuring how one radioactive element decays into another over time. The result: The rocks were about 4.16 billion years old.

The different methods "gave exactly the same age,” said study author Jonathan O'Neil with the University of Ottawa.

The new research was published Thursday in the journal Science.

Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a collapsing cloud of dust and gas soon after the solar system existed. Primordial rocks often get melted and recycled by Earth's moving tectonic plates, making them extremely rare on the surface today. Scientists have uncovered 4 billion-year-old rocks from another formation in Canada called the Acasta Gneiss Complex, but the Nuvvuagittuq rocks could be even older.

Studying rocks from Earth's earliest history could give a glimpse into how the planet may have looked — how its roiling magma oceans gave way to tectonic plates — and even how life got started.

“To have a sample of what was going on on Earth way back then is really valuable,” said Mark Reagan with the University of Iowa, who studies volcanic rocks and lava and was not involved with the new study.

The rock formation is on tribal Inukjuak lands and the local Inuit community has temporarily restricted scientists from taking samples from the site due to damage from previous visits.

After some geologists visited the site, large chunks of rock were missing and the community noticed pieces for sale online, said Tommy Palliser, who manages the land with the Pituvik Landholding Corp. The Inuit community wants to work with scientists to set up a provincial park that would protect the land while allowing researchers to study it.

“There's a lot of interest for these rocks, which we understand,” said Palliser, a member of the community. “We just don't want any more damage.”