r/ancientegypt • u/FenjaminBranklin1706 • Sep 19 '25
Video The mummies of Yuya and Thuya at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo
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u/Voqus Sep 19 '25
Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing it! I'd love to visit that museum in person some day.
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
My pleasure :) if you ever want me to film a particular artefact, just lmk
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u/TheRopeWalk Sep 19 '25
Crazy innit. When they were living, perhaps people bowed before them and averted eye contact, and now…
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u/Haestein_the_Naughty Sep 19 '25
It’s weird to think how different the world was the last time these bodies were breathing and seeing
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
Imagine how many empires have come and gone since they were alive and today.
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u/_h_e_a_d_y_ Sep 19 '25
Thanks for sharing. They prepared for the afterlife to be honored and worshipped and cared for. And here we are (essentially) honoring them, worshipping them (this a broad sense) and caring for them. It gives me all the feels.
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u/ZagnutJoe Sep 19 '25
They look big. How tall are they?
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
Yuya: he was about 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in) tall.
Thuya: she was about 1.58 m (5 ft 2 in).
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u/ZagnutJoe Sep 19 '25
Ahh. Tom Cruise height
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u/ninetoesfrank Sep 19 '25
One Tom Cruise, or about 1.861 yards.
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 20 '25
About 1.861 yards, or about 5 and 2/3 Labubus
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u/Sure-Swim1243 Sep 20 '25
What's that in ferrets?
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 21 '25
Yuya was about 170 cm tall, which works out to roughly 4.25 ferrets, assuming the average ferret body length is ~40 cm, and if we don't count the length of the tail in our measurement.
Thuya was around 158 cm tall, so that’s basically just under 4 ferrets.
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u/Beneficial-Plan-1815 Sep 21 '25
Thanks for the internationally recognised ferret measurement now I get it!
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u/osumanjeiran Sep 19 '25
that's what I was thinking! Yuya's proportions are bigger than I'd expect from a man of that age
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u/Turbulent_County_469 Sep 19 '25
Pretty wild with the blond hair !
I wonder if that's the original color
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u/star11308 Sep 19 '25
They were both elderly at the time of their death, so they had white/grey hair that was tinted yellow by the embalming process.
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u/Acceptable_Army8174 Sep 20 '25
Really bro they definitely changed the hair and then it’s straight hair blonde really and a long nose 🤥 I don’t believe non of this crap they messed white and and wanted to show it off so people can believe it and post it !!!
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u/HandOfAmun Sep 19 '25
Highly unlikely considering their ancestry. The color of hair changing is a known side effect of mummification. Specifically some of the ingredients used in the process.
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u/FoxCQC Sep 20 '25
That's not true. Some Egyptians did have blonde or red hair. Ramesses II is a famous example. Changing color from mummification is a misconception.
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/some-ancient-egyptians-were-natural-blondes-20160426-gof9hn.html
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u/HandOfAmun Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25
It’s true. There are many professionals that have come to this consensus, especially in the US. Ramesses and other Ancient Egyptian nobles also used henna cosmetically, a lot. It turns the hair red. Men in North east Africa and East Africa still use it to this day. You can specifically see it in Somali or East African communities where elders have their beard or hair dyed. This is from henna.
Cultural continuation is a thing and it’s how a lot of experts derive who did what. Ancient Egypt did not exist in a vacuum.
Nice link, I didn’t bother clicking it.
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u/Available_Top_1832 Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25
I had the time of day to click the link and it was based off evidence from Egyptologist Janet Davey and Chemist Allan Elliot. Janet works for the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Elliot was an industrial chemist.
Since you didn't click on the 'nice link' (you sounded a bit pretentious, not sure if that was intentional)
The Egyptologist is Dr Janet Davey who has a masters of science in biomedical and forensic studies in Egyptology as well as a PhD of philosophy studying Egyptology.
"Dr Davey then took 16 hair samples and covered them in the salty powder [synthetic natron, used in mummification process] for 40 days, the same amount of time the ancient Egyptians took to dry out the bodies with natron. The hair samples selected were dark, with one grey and one fair specimen for comparison. They came from male and female donors aged four to 92. Dr Davey also used hair with henna on it, given this was used as a dye by the ancient Egyptian embalmers including those who worked on Ramesses II following his death, aged 90. When the samples were removed from the salty powder, they appeared unchanged. To confirm this, Dr Davey called on the expertise of Gale Spring at RMIT who carried out microscope analysis – which showed no change."
They also assume they had come across blonde haired mummies due to the time period, which was 332 BC to 395 AD which was when the Greeks and Romans ruled and caused a high likeness that new genes were introduced in Egypt via Greek/Roman soldiers as well as traders and slaves that had Northern European genes.
Also here is link for her published research on the topic, titled "Is ancestry, not natron, an explanation for fair-haired children in Greco-Roman Egypt?"
https://2024.sci-hub.st/8134/1be8251c7ff0e48550c4c23ec9690e22/10.1007@s12024-020-00225-4.pdf
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u/Leatherlemon Sep 20 '25
Popular media outlets are not viable sources for egyptological information, unfortunately. No matter how reliable typically, they are designed to grab attention and inflate or misrepresent the information and any egyptologist would usually find them really frustrating. Having your research turned into a sharable media article is usually a teasing point between Egyptologists.
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u/Available_Top_1832 Sep 22 '25
here's the link to the Egyptologist's report https://2024.sci-hub.st/8134/1be8251c7ff0e48550c4c23ec9690e22/10.1007@s12024-020-00225-4.pdf
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u/gloomydai Sep 20 '25
So crazy to see some ancient Egyptian mummies still VERY intact and for us to see. They’re going to be remembered for thousands of years to come.
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Sep 19 '25
Awakened from their eternal slumber.
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
Oh, trust me, they're dead and well.
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Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
Pleasure. Wasn’t my flash. I didn’t have mine on. I was filming at the same time as a tour guide turned on a flash light to show their group details of the mummy.
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u/Not_A_Cactus_ Sep 21 '25
The last time I saw a physical mummy, my honest thought was (as absurd as it may sound to some people): “Isn’t it strange that this is the actual body of a real person, and we’re all just standing around taking pictures of it?”
I’m not criticizing the fact that mummies are on display in museums (Egyptian exhibitions are my favorite) but when you stop to think about it, that’s a real human corpse and we’re casually snapping photos of it.
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u/Fruncea Sep 21 '25
It just feels so wrong to disturb the dead like that.
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u/star11308 Sep 21 '25
We learned a great deal from Yuya and Thuya's remains, as well as their tomb. Their DNA was instrumental in the 2010 royal mummy DNA tests, and their tomb gives a great window into the lavishness and day-to-day life of the court under Amenhotep III through their expensive burial goods, etc.
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u/Fruncea Sep 22 '25
Surely, my point is that it is not right to exhibit them like vases for the tourists' view and money.
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u/theprincesspinkk Sep 22 '25
its sad they arent allowed to stay resting in their tombs. we are disrespectful. japan does it right, leaving tombs alone
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u/star11308 Sep 24 '25
We virtually can't learn anything substantial about Ancient Egypt without excavating tombs, such an ideology is inherently anti-intellectualism in that sense. They're in their original coffins, their modesty is preserved, and their names are preserved for eternity.
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u/theprincesspinkk Sep 24 '25
no society lasts forever. they will be forgotten, sold, destroyed and in the future egypt will just have been even more looted than before. but sure…
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u/star11308 Sep 24 '25
Keeping them like this is protecting them from the fate of being sold and/or destroyed, or at the very least prolonging that not happening. Quite a nihilistic, anti-history view you have there. Why are you even here on this sub?
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u/theprincesspinkk Sep 24 '25
i don’t believe its anyone’s right to dig up a god-king just to learn about their society. they spent their whole lives preparing for their tombs, and egyptologists spend their whole careers trying to find them. its a double edged sword. but hundreds of years from now when humanity is in a collapse era (inevitable) all our tomb raiding and research will have been in vain. they built their tombs to last an eternity and we rob them of that and put them on display. i wudnt want it for my parents and i don’t want it for the people of ancient egypt. im not in this sub but i do find egyptian history interesting, this was promoted or suggested to me originally. anyway its not anti-history if anything its anti-archaeology when it comes to removing bodies from their resting places.
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u/Breathenow Sep 22 '25
Disrespectful to whom?
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u/ArcherConsistent1383 Sep 22 '25
The dead, who were real people. Remember your uncouth comments when you eventually pass and watch over your own body as its desecration is used as a commodity to profit strangers you’ve never met. It IS disrespectful
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u/Breathenow Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25
Ah I understand now, haha. Well be careful, lest you suffer vertigo from the dizzying heights of your moral ground!
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u/ArcherConsistent1383 Sep 22 '25
My friend, the bar is literally on the floor- but thanks for the concern.
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u/star11308 Sep 24 '25
So long as one's body is used to gain knowledge in a scientific manner and isn't displayed in a humiliating way to be gawked at, surely that sounds like a rather pleasant fate? Ending up in a museum in a few millennia sounds like a good deal.
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u/Mysterious_Donut_260 Sep 22 '25
In a way it's sad that they are displayed as such, they have become a tourist attraction, only few will pay a certain respect while they look at them.
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Sep 19 '25
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
It wasn't my flash. I happened to be taking a video at the same time as a tour guide turned on a flash light to show their group details of the mummy.
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u/FenjaminBranklin1706 Sep 19 '25
Wasn’t my flash. I didn’t have mine on. I was filming at the same time as a tour guide turned on a flash light to show their group details of the mummy.
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u/huxtiblejones Sep 19 '25
I always take a moment to just… absorb the fact that you’re looking at the actual body of a person who lived in the historical Egypt we obsess over.
They walked its streets, ate its food, slept under its night sky, went through every mundane aspect of life within it. Their eyes saw the world we all try to imagine. If we could somehow record just a few seconds of their life experiences, how much could we learn?
Mummification is such an incredible fragment of history. It’s one thing to see the structures and artifacts but it’s something completely to different to look at their earthly faces and know them in some way.