Law and Order: The Ancient World

Just for fun, come join me in a look into an ancient murder case.

The Pharaoh, Ramesses III, was dead, there was no doubt about that.

His throat had been cut, and at first, nobody knew what had happened.

There are a lot of things you could be told about the Pharaoh, but the one thing you have to know for our purposes about the man is he REALLY liked to impregnate women.

By the time of his death he had tons of children by many, many wives.

So many, I honestly wonder when he found time to do anything else.

I mean, rabbits would have looked at him, and said, “slow down, dude”

So I guess it made sense that the investigation began in the harem.

Well, I am calling it an “investigation” but honestly since torture was used, its a little hard to be totally sure of the results.

After the ... err ... detective work was done, it was time for judges to get involved.

The case was regarded as pretty cut and dried, and several people confessed, and were sentenced to death.

This included a number of trusted advisers and servants of the pharaoh, but most shockingly, it included a member of the harem, and her son, who was also the son of the king.

Yes, he really was a Prince of Egypt.

Unlike the more common folk who confessed, he and his mother were given the opportunity to commit suicide instead of being executed.

They apparently agreed, and court documents chronicling this whole mess were made.

What the court had not told the defendants, was that outside of those documents, a deliberate attempt to erase them took place, which for Egyptians was worse than death, because they believed that they could not reach the afterlife without being remembered.

So why is this particular case interesting to us modern types?

See a mummy was found, not embalmed, and most worrying, with its mouth wide open as if he had spent his last breath screaming.

For a long time, this mummy, officially referred to as “Unknown man E” but informally known as “the screaming mummy”.

And for a long time, archeologists could only speculate about the mummy, since no identification was found.

Until genetic testing, and the discovery of the court documents, showed that it was very likely the mummy was none other than the prince who had attempted to seize the throne.

As for the screaming?

Well, it turns out unless wrapped properly, the jaw will fall open after death, giving it that terrifying appearance.

So ironically, the attempt to erase him has failed, and his name and story are now going to be remembered, even if there is still a little uncertainty about the identification.

So there you have it folks, an episode of Law and Order: the ancient world.

Will I do another one? Well, we will have to see . . .

End