Nakht was a young weaver who died more than 3,200 years ago when he was 14. His family loved him so much that they built him a coffin with the best wood, wrapped his body with the best cloth, and carefully wrote on the coffin of his brief life experience. Note that the family did not take out his lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach to put them in a jar.
But no one expected that 3100 years later (1904), his coffin would be dug out! It was transported from Egypt to Canada. Canadian researchers opened the coffin in 1974; and discovered that the body had naturally mummified.
After carefully peeled away the shroud layer by layer, the first thing to check is the teeth, because the ancient Egyptians’ food was mainly fruits with high sugar and whole grains containing sand and gravel, which are very bad for the teeth. But Nakht was 14 years old and his teeth are still good. What was the cause of death then? In order to perform an autopsy, researchers removed all his internal organs. They finally found out that his lungs were swollen.
After the autopsy, the coffin was placed in the hall on the first floor, the mummy was placed in the Egypt gallery on the third floor, the organs were also placed in the same display case. Even the shroud was put on display in a display case not far away for a period of time. One piece of Nakht’s skull got missing during the whole operation, so researchers made a replica of that piece. The mummy now is also covered by a cloth with only head and feet shown to the public.
This boy died young. His grave was dug, his coffin was opened, his wrappings were removed, his organs were removed. Isn’t he miserable? The researchers probably thought it was not good to do this, so later (just 4 years later) used CT scans on other mummies.