Takabuti’s Mummification Resin and Packing Material - Dr Keith White
Channel: Takabuti Seminar
Date: 2021-05-11

The mummy of Takabuti is one of the best-known antiquities in the Ulster Museum, Belfast. Takabuti was a young woman who lived in Egypt during a tumultuous period, around 600 BC. Her mummy was unwrapped and investigated in Belfast in 1835. The results of the Takabuti Project (2007-2009 and 2018-2020) have culminated in the publication of a new book – The Life and Times of Takabuti in Ancient Egypt: Investigating the Belfast Mummy (available from Liverpool University Press - https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/54509/)
The project has demonstrated how researchers act as ‘forensic detectives’ piecing together a picture of the life and times of Takabuti. Questions addressed include – Who was Takabuti? When did she live? Where did she come from and where did she reside? What did she eat, and did she suffer from any diseases? Did she suffer a violent death, and how was she mummified and prepared for burial?
This video was part of a one-day online seminar to launch the book and bring the project to the public.

Dr Keith White is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science and a member of the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at The University of Manchester. He was appointed to a lectureship at Manchester in 1981 and retired as Senior Lecturer in 2018. He has published nearly 80 peer-reviewed papers, several book chapters and numerous conference publications in environmental toxicology, aquatic pollution and water quality management. He was instrumental in initiating the water management approaches that were central to the success of the Salford Quays development in Greater Manchester and resulted in the launch of a highly successful environmental consultancy company. He has extensive experience with a number of analytical techniques including quantitative and quantitative trace element analysis, histology, light and electron microscopy and the use of aquatic biota as indicators of environmental stress. He is currently applying his environmental expertise to an examination of water provision in ancient Egypt.