Takabuti was an ancient Egyptian woman who lived in Thebes around 660 BC and died between the ages of twenty and thirty. Her mummy and coffin are in the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The coffin was opened and the mummy unrolled on 27 January 1835, and the leading Egyptologist Edward Hincks deciphered the hieroglyphs, revealing that she was a noblewoman and the mistress of a great house.
Takabuti was killed by an axe, probably while she was attempting to escape from her assailant. The wound was found in her upper left shoulder, and was more than likely instantaneously fatal. It was also found that Takabuti possessed two very rare mutations: an extra tooth and an extra vertebra.
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| The coffin and mummy and Takabuti |
In 2020, the University of Manchester's KNH Centre analysed Takabuti's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and determined it was H4a1. This is a European haplogroup, and in the archaeological record it has previously been reported in Guanche remains from the Canary Islands, in Bell Beaker and Únětice remains from Germany and in an individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria. The oldest reported H4a1 samples are from Cardial Neolithic contexts in Spain and Portugal, dating from c. 5300 BC. Today, this subclade is relatively rare in modern populations, while haplogroup H is the most common mtDNA clade in Europe. As you can read here, H4 “is often found in the Iberian Peninsula, Britain and Ireland at levels between 1 and 5% of the population. It is associated with Neolithic migrations. H4 and H13, along with H2 account for 42% of the hg H lineages in Egypt.”
Interestingly, haplogroup H has been observed among ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from the pre-Ptolemaic/late New Kingdom and Ptolemaic periods. Additionally, haplogroup H has been found among specimens at the mainland cemetery in Kulubnarti, Sudan, which date from the Early Christian period (AD 550–800).
THE MYSTERY OF TAKABUTI'S HAIR COLOUR
As for Takabuti’s hair colour, the Wikipedia page I linked at the beginning of the article states that the mummy’s hair is auburn, although now (as you can see in the photos below) the colour is more of a yellow-orange.
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However (as you can read here), when the coffin was first opened, the hair was reported to be auburn and a strand was taken and put into a box. This strand (photo below) is said to be still auburn. In the photo, because of the glass, the colour is not very clear, but it looks indeed like a dark red/auburn. The change in colour of the mummy’s hair is attributed to the long exposure to the air since the time of the unwrapping.
Now, the plot thickens and we will see the same pattern we already saw in the five-part article about fair-haired mummies.
First of all, in 2011 a study about Takabuti’s (and other mummies’) hair was published: Ancient Egyptian hair gel: new insight into ancient Egyptian mummification procedures through chemical analysis, by Natalie C. McCreesh, Andrew P. Gize and Rosalie Ann David.
Hair was analysed with some of the techniques we saw here, such as gas cromatography-mass spectrometry and microscopy, and researchers found out that, in the case of Takabuti, a fatty substance was used to coat the hair, which was interpreted as a product that was used in life to style the hair (similar to a modern day ‘hair gel’ or fixative). It was made up of camphor, tetradecanoic acid, phthalate ester, hexadecanoic acid, octadecanoic acid, dehydroabietic acid, methyl ester, phthalate ester, cholesterol and silicone grease.
No analysis was performed to determine the natural hair colour.
In the 2016 book Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World,
Rosalie David (one of the authors of the 2011 study) writes (page 190):
Another analytical study was carried out on hair taken from the mummy of Takabuti, a high-
ranking woman who lived at Thebes, c.660 bce (the mummy is now in the Ulster Museum, Belfast (UK)). This demonstrated that the reddish-blonde colour was a result of degradation, not natural pigment or the use of dye. It was also possible to show that the woman’s elaborate hairstyle, which incorporated artificial curls, had been coated with a hair-gel composed of fat mixed with camphor; 63 similar styling products have been found on mummies elsewhere. 64
As you can see, there are two footnotes, 63 and 64, but none of them clarify which study demonstrated that the reddish-blonde colour was a result of degradation (and degradation of what? Keratin or melanin?). The footnote 63 says “Personal communication, N. McCreesh”, while the 64 refers to the 2011 study.
Now, in 2009 Natalie McCreesh published the doctoral thesis Ritual anointing: analyses of hair and coffin coatings in ancient Egypt, of which only the abstract is available. Here we read:
Another significant finding was that the red coloured hair often seen on mummified remains was caused by the embalming material and degradation of the hair, not by henna dye as has been previously suggested.
This thesis is also mentioned in the book Être vieux en Égypte aux époques lagide et impériale. On page 199 we read (I translate from French):
The use of henna has often been proposed to explain the reddish color observed on the nails and hair of certain mummies. However, this hypothesis has been challenged in favor of a coloration attributed to embalming products. McCreesh recently conducted research on the ritual anointing of the body and funerary equipment as part of her thesis. Her results show that the red coloration of the hair on the mummies she studied does not stem from the use of henna. The oxidation of products applied during the treatment of the deceased’s body—specifically incense—could be the cause.
At the end of this paragraph there is the footnote 1004, where the author cites McCreesh’s thesis and writes: “I warmly thank Dr. N. McCreesh for granting me access to her as-yet unpublished work, as well as for the other references she kindly provided.”
So, basically, the work demonstrating that the red hair often seen in mummies COULD be due to the oxidation of products applied during mummification is not available….
In 2021, the newsletter of the Ulster Archaeological Society states about Takabuti (page 11, April Lecture by Duncan Berryman): “Analysis of her hair showed that it was naturally auburn”, but unfortunately the author doesn’t say which analysis he is referring to.
Always in 2021, Rosalie David wrote one more book, The Life and Time of Takabuti in Ancient Egypt. I quote from page 58:
Also noted during the unwrapping of the mummy was the large number of beetles that had penetrated the wrappings, attacking the body, especially the head, and more so on the sides. […] The mummy was fumigated with Phosphine gas in 1987 for conservation. […] The colour of ancient hair is often affected by degradation and mummification procedures, and cannot be presumed to represent its original colour.
Both hair from the mummy and the auburn strand taken in 1835 were analysed with light microscopy and environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM), and with gas cromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
On page 61 we read: “Pigment retained at the root of the hair indicated the original hair colour to be dark. Cross sections of the hair indicated it to be Caucasian in shape.”
What can we say about these passages?
The first thing that comes to my mind is that researchers keep repeating the usual mantra that the red colour is due to degradation without providing any evidence of that, and this is the opposite of what is called “the scientific method”. And I’m not saying that Takabuti’s hair is not degraded. I’m saying we don’t have any evidence that the auburn colour seen in 1835 was due to melanin or keratin products of degradation. Also, these researchers don’t seem to be interested in ascertain the natural colour of mummies’ hair, in spite of the many techniques available.
Secondly, on the one hand we are constantly told that we cannnot tell the real hair colour of a mummy by simply watching its hair, but on the other this researcher, after seeing Takabuti’s hair roots are “dark”, states that the original hair colour was dark.
And anyway, what does “dark” mean in this case? Because if you watch again the photo of the strand kept in the box, you’ll see it looks quite darkish. It is not a light colour.
And how come in the case of Takabuti the colour of hair roots is considered a proof of her natural hair colour, while in the case of Ramesses II the colour of his hair roots (which is red) is not a proof of his natural hair colour?
Furthermore, there are studies about hair roots getting darker post-mortem.
In 2018 A study of the intrinsic variability and the effect of environmental conditions on the formation of a postmortem root band was published and in 2023 The rate and quality of post-mortem hair root changes in relation to melanin content.
In particular, the 2018 study is about the so-called postmortem root band (PMRB), which is defined as “an opaque ellipsoidal band composed of a collection of parallel elongated air/gas spaces and is approximately 0.5 mm above the root bulb and about 2 mm below the skin surface” which can appear in the root of hairs attached to remains during decomposition. According to the study, an aqueous environment and microbial activity are essential for the formation of PMRB-like features. Clearly, the mummy of Takabuti did not come in contact with water, but since at the moment of unwrapping beetles were found, it is possible that microbes were there too. The interaction with the “hair gel” should be taken into consideration as well.
Besides, the authors write PMRBs can appear antemortem (before the death) as well.
As far as I could understand, researchers did not analyse the roots to verify the nature of the dark colour.
Lastly, in 2023 a new analysis on Takabuti was performed, published under the title Enhancing mummy ‘palaeobiographies’ through the use of
multidisciplinary techniques and approaches and, as you can see, we find Rosalie David among the authors. The mummy was examined with several techniques. I quote from the introduction:
Here we re-examine Takabuti’s mummy to evidence the scope of combining computerised interrogation of CT imaging, an MIP (image intensifier-guided needle biopsy), coupled with analytical technologies (genomics, proteomics, light and electron microscopy, inorganic and organic analysis and radiocarbon dating) and existing Egyptological data, to extend previous understanding of her background, life events and preparation for the afterlife. We describe a toolkit for examining hard and soft tissues and define its scope, allowing not only an “osteo- biography” to be produced but also a more holistic “palaeobiography” that brings enhanced insights about an individual.No analysis of hair colour.
So, to cut a long story short, here we have a very confused and contradictory situation, but the fact remains that Takabuti’s hair has not been analysed to ascertain the natural hair colour, in spite of the mummy having been analysed twice and with the most modern techniques. And, as usual, researchers go on repeating unproven theories about degradation to explain the red hair colour.
The usual with potatoes, as we would say in Italy.😄
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