Aloe Found in a 2,700-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy Head, a First for Embalming Chemistry
A mummified skull that sat in a German university collection has just revealed a chemical secret. Researchers at Marburg University found compounds linked to aloe in the head, which dates to about 2,700 years ago. It is the first time scientists have identified aloe in ancient Egyptian embalming materials through molecular analysis.
Why embalming chemistry still holds surprises
Ancient Egyptian embalmers are famous for using resins, oils, waxes and balms to preserve the dead. Yet their recipes were rarely written down in a way modern readers can decode. Many Egyptian words for ingredients remain unclear, so scholars have long argued about what some of them meant. One such puzzle is an ancient Egyptian term, written anch-jm.j, which texts from the second millennium BC mention. Researchers have debated whether it refers to aloe.
A team from Marburg University in Germany set out to test that idea with chemistry. Their study, published in 2026 in the journal PNAS, combines natural product analysis, Egyptology and the history of pharmacy. The lead authors include Tanja Pommerening, who works on the history of pharmacy and medicine, and Raphael Reher, a specialist in pharmaceutical biology.
What the team analyzed
The researchers examined 24 objects from university and pharmacy museum collections. The set included mummified body parts, embalming residues, bandages, two mummified skulls and historical medicines sold as Mumia vera aegyptiaca. They also reviewed 41 written sources. To study the chemistry, they used mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, which catalogs the many small molecules in a sample, and they used computer and machine-learning tools to help identify them.
One key sample was a mummified skull from the Zoological Collection of Marburg University. Radiocarbon dating placed it in the 8th century BC. The other was an 18th-century Mumia preparation from the Loewen Pharmacy in Offenbach am Main, now held by the German Pharmacy Museum in Heidelberg.
Aloe in two of 24 objects
Aloe-associated plant compounds turned up in just two of the 24 objects: the ancient skull and the 18th-century Mumia powder. The chemistry points to true Aloe rather than agarwood, a different material that people also called aloe in past centuries. Because aloe appeared so rarely, the authors caution that Egyptian embalmers probably did not use it in mummification in general. It may have belonged to particular practices or periods.
The result also gives a new angle on the old word puzzle. The authors suggest that anch-jm.j may refer to aloe or an aloe-derived exudate, but they do not claim the match is certain.
Mummy medicine and a surprise link
Mumia was a real remedy. For centuries, European physicians and patients used preparations sold under that name, which were said to come from Egyptian mummies, and some people ate them as medicine. The new analysis shows that products labeled Mumia varied widely. Many contained markers of aged conifer resin, and some of those compounds have shown antimicrobial activity in earlier experiments.
The team also compared samples in the Heidelberg museum and found a close match between a mummified head and a powder that was catalogued separately. That similarity suggests the two may once have shared a material or history, although the collection records show no such connection.
In cell culture, an extract from a historical Mumia sample modestly protected cells from damage caused by influenza virus. The main compound the team isolated, 7-oxodehydroabietic acid, did not reproduce that effect, so the active ingredients remain unknown. The experiment does not show that the remedy works in people.
Caveats and open questions
Several limits matter here. Two positive samples out of 24 is a small base, so the study cannot say how common aloe was in Egyptian embalming. The link between aloe and the Egyptian word is a suggestion. The cell results are preliminary and come from lab dishes, not patients. Future work on more mummies from different periods could show when and why embalmers reached for aloe.
For now, a skull that spent centuries in a collection has added a small but real detail to the story of how Egyptians prepared their dead, and how Europeans later turned those same bodies into medicine.