In October 2000 a mummy of an alleged Persian princess surfaced in Baluchistan province of Pakistan. After huge publicity and further investigation, the mummy proved to be an archaeological forgery and possibly a murder victim. A mummy is a corpse whose skin and flesh have been preserved by deliberate or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold or dryness, or airlessness. ... Persia and Persian can refer to: the Western name for Iran. ... Baluchistan (or Balochistan), also known as Greater Baluchistan is an arid region of south Asia, presently split between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. ... Archaeological forgery is a manufacture of supposedly ancient items that are sold to the antiquities market and may even end up in the collections of museums. ...

The Persian Mummy or The Forged Persian Princess

Mummy was found October 19, 2000. Pakistani authorities received a tip that one Ali Aqbar had videotape that showed he had a mummy for sale. Aqbar led the police to the house of tribal leader Wali Mohammed Reeki in Kharan in Baluchistan near the border of Afghanistan. Reeki told them that he had received it from an Iranian named Sharif Shah Bakhi who had said that he had found it after an earthquake near Quetta. The mummy had been in sale in the black antiquities market for equivalent to $11-30 million. Reeki and Akbar were accused of violating the country's Antiquities Act with a possible ten years in prison. This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... October 19 is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Quetta is the capital of the province Balochistan in Pakistan. ... The Antiquities Act of 1906 is an act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt giving the President of the United States authority to place certain lands under control of the federal government by executive order, bypassing Congressional oversight. ...

In a press conference on October 26, archaeologist Ahmad Hasan Dani from the Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University announced that the mummy seemed to be a princess dated circa 600 BC. October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 66 days remaining. ... Faisal Mosque, located in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, was built in 1986. ... Centuries: 8th century BC - 7th century BC - 6th century BC Decades: 650s BC 640s BC 630s BC 620s BC 610s BC - 600s BC - 590s BC 580s BC 570s BC 560s BC 550s BC Events and Trends Fall of the Assyrian Empire and Rise of Babylon 609 BC _ King Josiah...

The mummy was wrapped in Egyptian style and rested in a gilded wooden coffin with cuneiform carvings inside a stone sarcophagus. The coffin had been carved with a large image of Ahura Mazda. The mummy was atop a layer of mixture of wax and honey and was covered by a stone slab and it had a golden crown on its brow. Inscription on the golden chest plate claimed that she was relatively unknown Rhodugune, a daughter of king Xerxes. Cuneiform (from the Latin word for wedge-shaped) can refer to: an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC three bones in the human foot a record label, Cuneiform Records. ... Stone sarcophagus of Pharaoh Merenptah A sarcophagus is a stone container for a coffin or body. ... The Faravahar figure shown here is a comonly-used icon in Zoroastrian illustrations, Ahura Mazda is the abstract and transcendant god of Zoroastrianism. ... XERXES is the primary computer system of the starship Von Braun from the video game System Shock 2. ...

Archaeologists speculated that she might have been an Egyptian princess married to a Persian prince or a daughter of Cyrus the Great of Khamam-ul-Nishiyan dynasty of Persia. However, because mummification had been primarily Egyptian practice, they had not met any mummies in Persia before. Tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae Cyrus II the Great (Persian: کوروش کبیر) (about 576 - July, 529 BC) was a king of Persia, famous for his military prowess and mercy. ...

At the same time, governments of Iran and Pakistan begun to argue about the ownership of the mummy. Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization claimed that she was a member of Persian royal family and demanded the mummy's return. Pakistan's Archaeological Department HQ said that it belonged to Pakistan because it had been found in Baluchistan. Taliban of Afghanistan also made a claim. People in Quetta demanded that the police should return the mummy to them. The Taliban (Pashtun and Persian: طالبان; students), also transliterated as Taleban, is an Islamist and Pashtun nationalist movement which ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, despite having diplomatic recognition from only three countries: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. ...

On November 2000, the mummy was placed in display in the National Museum of Pakistan.

In USA, archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella stated that the description of the mummy sounded similar to photographs of a mummy he had seen the previous March. Amanollah Riggi, a middleman working in behalf of an unidentified antiquities dealer in Pakistan had approached him and offered him a mummy. He had claimed that its owners were in Pakistan and a Zoroastrian family had brought it to the country. The seller had claimed that was a daughter of Xerxes, based on translation of the cuneiform of the breastplate. Zoroastrianism was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) in Persia very roughly around 1000 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimates are as late as 600 BC). ...

The cuneiform text on the breastplate contained a passage from the Behistun inscription in western Iran. Behistun inscription was carved during a reign of Darius, a later king. When the dealer's representative had sent a piece of a coffin to be carbon dated, analysis had shown that the coffin was only maybe 250 years old. Muscarella had suspected a forgery and severed contact. He had informed Interpol through the FBI. The Behistun Inscription, carved into a cliffside, gives the same text in three languages, telling the story of King Darius conquests. ... Darius was the name of three kings of ancient Persia: Darius the Great or Darius I of Persia. ... Radiocarbon dating is the use of the naturally occurring isotope of carbon-14 in radiometric dating to determine the age of organic materials, up to ca. ... This article is about the International Criminal Police Organization - Interpol. ...

When Pakistani professor Ahmad Dani, director of the Institute of Asian Civilizations in Islamabad, studied the coffin he realized it was not as old as the body. The mat below the body was maybe five years old. She contacted Asma Ibrahim, the curator of the Pakistani National Museum in Karachi, who investigated further. During the investigation, Iran and Taliban repeated their demands. Taliban claimed that they had apprehended the smugglers that had taken the mummy out of Afghanistan.

The inscriptions on the breastplate were not in proper grammatical Persian. Instead of a Persian form the daughter's name, Wardegauna, forgers had used a Greek version Rhodugune. CAT and X-ray scans in Aga Lhan Hospital indicated that the mummification had not been made following ancient Egyptian custom - many internal organs were removed but the brain was still inside the skull, for example. Tendons that would have decayed over centuries were still intact. CAT apparatus in a hospital Computed axial tomography (CAT), computer-assisted tomography, computed tomography, CT, or body section roentgenography is the process of using digital processing to generate a three-dimensional image of the internals of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... Two different meanings: The process of preparing a dead body for preservation; see: Mummy The practice of (sexually) restraining a living body. ...

In a report on April 17, 2001, Ibrahim concluded that the mummy was a body of a modern woman of maybe 21 years of age who had died maybe two years previously and possibly killed with a blunt instrument to the neck. Her teeth had been removed after death and her hip joint, pelvis and backbone damaged. Then the body had been filled with powder. Police begun to investigate possible murder and arrested number of suspects in Baluchistan. April 17 is the 107th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (108th in leap years). ... 2001: A Space Odyssey 2001 2001 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External Link

The Mystery of the Persian Mummy

Special Report: Saga of the Persian Princess From Archaeology.org

BBC Program's Transcript Of The Mystery of the Persian Mummy