How it began
Around 3400 BCE, pastoralists in the Tashwinat Valley of the Tadrart Acacus, in the Fezzan region of southwestern Libya, mummified a child of about two and a half years and buried the body at the bottom of the Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter. The Italian archaeologist Fabrizio Mori, who founded an archaeological mission in the Sahara in 1955 to record rock art, excavated the burial in the late 1950s. Radiocarbon tests gave the date.
How it works
A long incision in the abdomen indicates that the thoracic and abdominal organs were removed. The cavity was filled with a light, porous material, possibly mixed with plant seeds, which was never analyzed. No resin or bitumen was used. The body was laid curled on its right side, wrapped in animal skin, with a necklace of ostrich eggshell beads. Savino di Lernia of Sapienza University of Rome calls it a rudimentary but exceptional form of mummification, helped by the extreme aridity of the Sahara.
What changed first
The child lived during the African Humid Period, when the Sahara held lakes and grasslands and cattle herders thrived there. Researchers disagree about what the burial shows of that society. Joann Fletcher of the University of York thinks the child may have belonged to an elite group with the means and skill to preserve a body. Di Lernia sees a more egalitarian society in which this burial simply received special care.
What lasted
Egyptians did not begin removing organs until around 2600 BCE, some 800 years after this burial. The find therefore changed the view that Egypt alone practiced mummification in the ancient world. The Libyan antiquities expert Ramadan al-Shaibani cites a theory that desert dwellers knew mummification first and passed it to Egypt, which refined it. Fletcher acknowledges strong cultural links between Neolithic Saharan societies and early Egypt.
Where it stands today
The mummy is held at Libya's National Museum in Tripoli. It has decayed badly through improper storage and power cuts after 2011. When di Lernia saw it in 1999 only the skull, spine, ribs and scattered limb bones remained. Libya's Department of Antiquities and Sapienza University have reached an understanding that could send it to Rome for restoration and study, including ancient DNA analysis, but funding is lacking.
