PAST CRIMESyoung man found nearby, who was aged about 18, showed that he had the
same DNA as the pharaoh, in a proportion typical of a fatherson
relationship, and thus was probably his son Pentaweret. This body had been
covered with a goatskin, which would have been seen as a mark of
disrespect. The neck of this second mummy showed overinflation of the
chest cavity and compressions in the skin that might indicate he had been
strangled to death, rather than committed suicide.^5
Modern techniques have revealed another even older Egyptian murder case.
A group of six naturally mummified bodies was found around 1900 at
Gebelein in the Upper Egyptian desert not far from Luxor. They date from the
middle of the fourth millennium BC, and their bodies, including soft tissue,
were preserved by the hot dry sand in which they were buried. One of these
bodies, noted for his red hair (leading to his nickname‘Ginger’), that had been
given to the British Museum, was subjected in 2012 to a CAT scan at the
Cromwell Hospital. The results showed that this individual was a healthy
young man (around 20 years old), who had been murdered. A copper or flint
knife, estimated to have been at least 12cm long and 2cm wide, had been
stabbed into his back, notching his left shoulder blade and breaking one of his
ribs into fragments. It would have penetrated his lung. There was no evidence
Figure 8. Mummy of Rameses III