The brutal death of the “Brave”, the Egyptian pharaoh killed in a war by loud hippos

Seqenenre-Taa-II, said “El Valiente”, was executed after a war started by loud hippos who bothered Apophis’ dream, ruler of the Hyksos and enemy of Pharaoh.

A scanner the remains of the Egyptian ruler, who ruled southern Egypt for 3,576 years, revealed that he was captured and brutally executed by five people.

The study published by Frontiers in medicine relates to the mythical conflict between Apophis and Segenenra. This is kept in the Papyrus Salt Bowl I and tell that, Unable to sleep for several nights, Apophis sent a messenger to Thebes to accuse Pharaoh of the situation:

Apopi, who sent me to say to you: Make me leave the hippo pond which is east of the city, for they prevent sleep from coming to me day and night. The noise that they filled the ears of the inhabitants of their city

The study of your tomography details revealed and confirmed that had not been detected, between them, what Pharaoh was bound by his hands to prevent him from defending himself.

“This suggests that Seqenenre was really on the front line with his soldiers who risk their lives to liberate Egypt, ”said lead author Dr Sahar Saleem, professor of radiology at Cairo University specializing in paleoradiology, Europa Press.

The remains were analyzed with new medical technologies that allow us to know the age, sex and cause of death. Thanks to this, the researchers were able to determine that the wounds “Valiente” were perpetrated by five different weapons, which would imply that the same number of people attacked him.

“In a normal execution of a tied prisoner, one might assume that a single assailant is attacking, perhaps from different angles but not with different weapons,” he told Saleem. “Seqenenre’s death was more of a ceremonial execution.”

Among other things, they determined that the ruler of Thebes died at the age of 40, the most precise estimate to date developed from its morphology.

Segenenre’s mummy was discovered in 1881 by a group of archaeologists who studied the tombs of Deir el-Bahir, inside the Theban necropolis. His death remained under a halo of mystery, his body showing no injuries. and it was in poor condition, which was attributed to a hasty embalming.

However, Saleem and study co-author Zahi Hawass, an archaeologist and former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, have offered another unprecedented find about the mummy: the embalmers used a layer of material similar to that currently used in plastic surgery to hide the pharaoh’s wounds.

It could mean that Segenenre’s body was embalmed in a royal mummification laboratory and not in a poorly equipped location, as experts had previously interpreted.

According to Daily mail, to this day, the remains of the Egyptian pharaoh were considered “the least well preserved of all the royal mummies kept in the Cairo museum”. Even the Egyptologists who performed the forensic examination of Segenenre, James Harris and Kent Weeks, spoke of a “foul, oily smell” that filled the room when the box where the remains were found was opened.

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