A peculiar discovery was made by conservators in the UK who were working on a 3,000-year old Egyptian mummy which is about to go on display at the City Hall Museum in Perth, Scotland, the Daily Mail reports.
According to the newspaper, the conservators made their find as they lifted the mummy - which is believed to be the remains of a priestess or princess from Thebes named Ta-Kr-Hb – out of its sarcophagus for the first time in 100 years and discovered "painted figures of an Egyptian goddess on both the internal and external bases of the coffin trough".
"It was a great surprise to see these paintings appear”, said Dr Mark Hall, collections officer at Perth Museum and Art Gallery. "We had never had a reason to lift the whole thing so high that we could see the underneath of the trough and had never lifted the mummy out before and didn't expect to see anything there. So to get a painting on both surfaces is a real bonus and gives us something extra special to share with visitors".
The paintings in question appear to be depictions of ancient Egyptian goddess Imentet, patron of the deceased.
Researchers now intend to further study these images in order to try and glean more information related to the history of the mummy which is believed to date from somewhere between 760 and 525 BC, the newspaper adds.
