Takabuti

Takabuti was a married woman who reached an age of between twenty and thirty years. She lived in the Egyptian city of Thebes at the end of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt. Her mummified body and mummy case are in the Ulster Museum, Belfast.[1]

Takabuti
The mummy and coffin of Takabuti on display in Ulster Museum
Burial place	Thebes
Parents	Nespare (father) Tasenirit (mother)

The coffin was opened and the mummy unrolled on 27 January 1835 in Belfast Natural History Society’s museum at College Square North. Edward Hincks, a leading Egyptologist from Ireland, was present and deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs which revealed that she was a noblewoman and the mistress of a great house. Her mother’s name was Tasenirit and her father was Nespare, a priest of Amun.[2][3][4] She was buried in a cemetery west of Thebes. It was initially suggested that Takabuti was murdered due to knife wounds found on her body.[5] During this investigation, Takabuti's mtDNA was tested and determined to be mitochondrial haplogroup H4a1, described as "a predominantly European haplogroup",[6] and indicative of "European heritage".[7] In the archaeological record H4a1 has been reported in Cardial Neolithic remains from Spain and Portugal dating from c. 5300 BC,[8] in 6th to 14th century CE Guanche remains from the Canary Islands,[9] in remains from Bell Beaker and Unetice contexts (2500–1575 BCE) in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and in an individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria. The H4a1 variant possessed by Takabuti is relatively rare in modern populations, with a modern distribution including ~ 2% of a southern Iberian population, ~ 1% in a Lebanese population and ~ 1.5% of multiple Canary Island populations.[10]

Analysis of Takabuti's well-preserved hair found that it was naturally auburn in colour.[11][12]

In 2020, museum studies researcher Angela Stienne accused the investigators of wanting to prove that ancient Egyptians were white, an accusation denied by chief curator Hannah Crowdy.[13]

After the Napoleonic Wars there was a brisk trade in Egyptian mummies. Takabuti was purchased in 1834 by Thomas Greg of Ballymenoch House, Holywood, Co. Down. At that time, the unwrapping of a mummy was of considerable scientific interest (as well as curiosity) and later studies revealed beetles later identified as Necrobia mumiarum Hope, 1834, Dermestes maculatus DeGeer, 1774 (as D. vulpinus) and Dermestes frischi Kugelann, 1792 (as D. pollinctus Hope, 1834). The painted coffin was itself of considerable interest and the wrappings of fine linen were given much attention in the town that was the commercial centre of the Irish linen industry. One hundred and seventy years later Takabuti remains a popular attraction for visitors.

In April of 2021, a new book on Takabuti was published, revealing that she had not been killed by a knife, but instead by an axe, probably while she was attempting to escape from her assailant (speculated to either be an Assyrian soldier or one of Takabuti's own people). The wound was found in her upper left shoulder, and was more than likely instantaneously fatal. It was also found that Takabuti's heart had not been removed (as previously thought), and she possessed two very rare mutations: an extra tooth (which appears in 0.02 per cent of the population) and an extra vertebra (which occurs in 2 per cent of the population).[14][15]