[00:00.49]The mummy of an Egyptian woman who died in 800 B.C. has just had an operation.
[00:08.53]The mummy is that of Shepenmut who was once a singer in the Temple of Thebes.
[00:16.56]As there were strange marks on the X-ray plates taken of the mummy,
[00:21.77]doctors have been trying to find out whether the woman died of a rare disease.
[00:27.13]The only way to do this was to operate.
[00:30.43]The operation, which lasted for over four hours, proved to be very difficult because of the hard resin which covered the skin.
[00:40.26]The doctors removed a section of the mummy and sent it to a laboratory.
[00:45.35]They also found something which the X-ray plates did not show: a small wax figure of the god Duamutef.
[00:55.49]This god which has the head of a cow was normally placed inside a mummy.
[01:02.04]The doctors have not yet decided how the woman died.
[01:05.89]They feared that the mummy would fall to pieces when they cut it open, but fortunately this has not happened.
[01:13.64]The mummy successfully survived the operation.