1700-year-old Egyptian mummy was boy dressed as girl, reveals 3D scan

London, Nov 26 (ANI): An Egyptian mummy said to be 1,700 years old has been revealed as a boy dressed in girl's clothing.

The child, who lived around 350AD, was housed at Saffron Walden Museum in Essex, and had been a mystery after he was discovered in a private collection in 1878.

Studies last year discovered it was wrapped in clothing adorned in feminine symbols, wearing girl's breast cones and a female bracelet.

Ground-breaking CT scans carried out at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, have finally solved the mystery revealing the mummy is a boy dressed in girl's clothing.

The stunning images also showed the boy mysteriously suffered a fractured skull and brain haemorrhage and a broken collarbone before dying.

Museum curator Carolyn Wingfield said the mummy was also two or three years younger than first believed.

"Clear pictures of internal organs, bones and wrappings were obtained which confirmed the sex as male, and from tooth and bone growth the child was aged to four to five years of age," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.

"His bones were sturdy, but a fracture was visible above the right temple, and the right collarbone was fractured, also before death.

"An accident or fall may have befallen him about three weeks before it caused his end. There was no evidence of disease.

"Obviously the child of a well-off family. He was embalmed and wrapped in fine linen with a stiffening rod of wood placed along his back for support.

"Why he was finally wrapped in a woman's painted shroud is a mystery," she stated. (ANI)