World’s oldest evidence of breast cancer found in 4,200-year-old Egyptian skeleton

EgiptoCancer A Spanish university archaeological team has discovered what Egyptian authorities are calling the world’s oldest evidence of breast cancer.

The woman, who lived at the end of the 6th Pharaonic Dynasty, showed «an extraordinary deterioration.» According to Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty, «the study of her remains shows the typical destructive damage provoked by the extension of a breast cancer as a metastasis,» he said in a statement.

«The team from University of Jaen has confirmed that the woman lived at the end of the 6th Dynasty (2200 BCE) and was part of the elite of the southernmost town of Egypt, Elephantine,» the statement said.

«The virulence of the disease impeded her to carry out any kind of labor, but she was treated and taken care during a long period until her death.»
The archaeological excavations began in Qubbet el-Hawa in 2008. The University of Jaen’s team major goal is to reconstruct the life and funerary rituals of the governors of Elephantine and their families who lived between 2250 and 1750 BCE.

It has been deduced that the Egyptian woman was an aristocrat from Elephantine, the country’s southernmost town.
This finding coincides with evidence reported last year by British researchers of metastatic cancer in a 3,000-year-old skeleton found in a tomb in modern Sudan. These findings suggest that cancer was around in the Nile Valley in ancient times.

Researchers say that the Egyptian woman was an aristocrat from Elephantine, the country’s southernmost town. Examination of the last food found in the stomachs of three horses buried in her tomb allowed researchers to piece together her life.

Descargar