Who lies below?

Here is a puzzle for you.

Who lies below in this family vault in the graveyard of St Mary the Virgin, Cheshunt in Hertfordshire? And what is her - yes, her - connection to Ancient Egypt?

Time has eroded the name slightly but you may be able to decipher it.

Work it out and start to uncover the strange tale of a banjo-playing barmaid who became a great collector of Egyptian antiquities - a collection that has now vanished - a ‘mummy’s curse’ and death by elephant.

Intrigued? You should be.

All will be revealed in the coming weeks ...

Mummy scans reveal heart disease plagued our ancestors BEFORE the emergence of junk food and cigarettes

A macabre study of mummified corpses shows that heart attacks and strokes may have plagued the ancient world as well as the modern one - even without temptations like fast food and cigarettes.

Researchers say their findings suggest heart disease may be more a natural part of ageing rather than being directly tied to modern vices like smoking, eating fatty foods and not exercising.

For more, see The Daily Mail

Archaeologists discover 35 burial chambers in Sudan desert with links to Ancient Egypt

Archaeologists excavating a site in Sudan have discovered 35 pyramids revealing fascinating links between the bygone Kingdom of Kush that once existed there and ancient Egypt.

The pyramids, which date back around 2,000 years, are smaller than most Egyptian examples with the largest being 22 feet in width and the smallest, likely constructed for the burial of a child, being just 30 inches.

The site in Sedeinga, northern Sudan, was part of the ancient kingdom of Kush which shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire.

For more, see the Daily Mail

The brilliant beads of 'Cleopatra's necklace': Ancient Egyptian jewellery plucked from burial mound of Siberian 'virgin princess'

Extraordinary brightly-coloured glass jewellery believed to be from Ancient Egypt has been found in a 2,400-year-old burial mound in Siberia.

Nicknamed 'Cleopatra's Necklace' by the Russians who found it, the jewellery was discovered on the skeleton of a 25-year-old woman, believed to have been a virgin priestess.

Although it was discovered during a dig nine years ago, this is the first time a picture of the priceless 17-bead necklace has been shown since it was found in the Altai Mountains by archaeologist Yelena Borodovskya.

For more, see the Daily Mail

Manchester Museum scan mummies to find out secrets of the ancient Egyptians

Pictures show for the first time how cutting-edge technology is being used to analyse the millennia-old mystery of Egyptian mummies.

Staff from Manchester Museum invited the M.E.N. to watch the preserved bodies undergo CT scans at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. 

Over the coming months, museum staff hope to scan all 24 of their mummies. 

For more, see Manchester Evening News