Origin of ancient mummified baboons found in Egypt

In ancient Egypt, various deities were portrayed as animals. Thoth, the god of learning and wisdom was represented by a hamadryas baboon. Baboons, probably held in captivity in Egypt, were mummified as votive offerings after their deaths. Today, no wild baboons live in Egypt, and there is no evidence to suggest that these primates did so in the past. In an interdisciplinary project involving biologists, Egyptologists and anthropologists, Gisela Kopp, a biologist from Konstanz who conducts research on non-human primates, pursued the question of how and from where baboons came to Egypt. The results have been published in the current issue of the journal eLife.

Baboons were imported

To pay homage to the deity Thoth, baboons were probably imported from distant regions and kept in captivity in ancient Egypt. As studies of skeletons show, they had their dangerous canine teeth removed. To determine the geographic origin of the baboons, Gisela Kopp and her team used genetic analyses. The region from which the animals originate can be determined with the help of the mitochondrial genome of the animal mummies. The distribution of baboons across the African continent and their genetic diversity is well studied.

"We have comparative samples from almost all regions where baboons live today," Gisela Kopp says. These were supplemented with approximately 100 to 150-year-old specimens from museum collections. Comparisons of samples from the widely separated time periods are possible because the location of the different genetic variants of the baboon populations is very consistent over time.

Comparative sample points to Adulis

One of the study's collaborators, anthropologist Nathaniel Dominy from Dartmouth College in the United States, had already used stable isotopes to identify the respective geographic locations of mummified baboons. This method of using chemical signatures can be employed to distinguish between where animals were born and where they grew up. The study, published in 2020, was able to identify the Horn of Africa as the baboons' region of origin. Using genetic analysis, which has higher geographic precision and can also determine where the animals and their ancestors came from originally, the location was narrowed down to a well-defined area in Eritrea and neighbouring regions. A comparative sample that was most similar to the genetic variant of the mummy specimen originates from the coastal region in Eritrea, where, in ancient times, the port of Adulis was probably located. Ancient texts refer to Adulis as a trading place for luxury goods and animals.

The mummy specimen used by Gisela Kopp and her team was excavated in 1905 in the "Valley of the Monkeys" and is now held in the Musée des Confluences in Lyon. The mummy is estimated to date back to between 800 and 500 BCE in the Late Period of ancient Egypt. This is long before Adulis flourished as an important trading centre and port.

Early historical texts mention Punt as the baboons' place of origin, a legendary region from which Egypt imported luxury goods for centuries until early in the first millennium BCE. However, the exact location of Punt is unknown. "Egyptologists have long puzzled over Punt, since some scholars have seen it as a location in early global maritime trade networks, and thus the starting point for economic globalization," says Gisela Kopp.

Egyptology provides the link between Punt and Adulis

Punt is documented in ancient illustrations and texts from the same period as the mummy specimens. The Egyptological expertise in the project made it possible to link Punt to Adulis. "The specimen we studied fits chronologically with the last known expeditions to Punt. Geographically, however, it fits Adulis, a location that, centuries later, was known as a trading place, also for primates. We hypothesize that Punt and Adulis are two different names for the same place that were used at different points in time," Gisela Kopp says. And: "It was only after we put our biological findings in the context of historical research that the story really came together."

In the field of biology itself the findings are a scientific breakthrough, because it was the first time that ancient DNA from mummified non-human primates was analyzed successfully. This opens up opportunities to study, for example, the impact of human-wildlife interactions on genetic diversity and their role in the transmission of diseases. The contact ancient Egyptians had with exotic animals is evidence for early intensive interactions between wild animals and humans. The mass mummification of different animal species and primates is a very extraordinary cultural practice.

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Bizarre meat-eating dinosaur joins 'Rogues' Gallery' of giant predators from classic fossil site in Egypt's Sahara Desert

An Egyptian-American team of researchers has announced the discovery of a new kind of large-bodied meat-eating dinosaur, or theropod, from a celebrated fossil site in Egypt's Sahara Desert. The fossil of a still-unnamed species provides the first known record of the abelisaurid group of theropods from a middle Cretaceous-aged (approximately 98 million years old) rock unit known as the Bahariya Formation, which is exposed in the Bahariya Oasis of the Western Desert of Egypt.

In the early 20th century, this locality famously yielded the original specimens of a host of remarkable dinosaurs -- including the colossal sail-backed fish-eater Spinosaurus -- which were then destroyed in World War II. Abelisaurid fossils had previously been found in Europe and in many of today's Southern Hemisphere continents, but never before from the Bahariya Formation. The team describes the Bahariya abelisaurid discovery in a paper published today in Royal Society Open Science.

The study was led by Ohio University graduate student Belal Salem, based on work he initiated while a member of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP) in Mansoura, Egypt. The research team also included Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine professor of biomedical sciences Patrick O'Connor; Matt Lamanna, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History; Sanaa El-Sayed, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan and the MUVP's former vice director; Hesham Sallam, a professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and Mansoura University and the founding director of the MUVP; and additional colleagues from Benha University and the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency.

The fossil in question, a well-preserved vertebra from the base of the neck, was recovered by a 2016 MUVP expedition to the Bahariya Oasis. The vertebra belongs to an abelisaurid, a kind of bulldog-faced, small-toothed, tiny-armed theropod that is estimated to have been roughly six meters (20 feet) in body length. Abelisaurids -- most notably represented by the horned, demonic-looking Patagonian form Carnotaurus of Jurassic World and Prehistoric Planet fame -- were among the most diverse and geographically widespread large predatory dinosaurs in the southern landmasses during the Cretaceous Period, the final time period of the Age of Dinosaurs. Along with Spinosaurus and two other giant theropods (Carcharodontosaurus and Bahariasaurus), the new abelisaurid fossil adds yet another species to the cadre of large predatory dinosaurs that roamed what is now the Egyptian Sahara roughly 98 million years ago.

"During the mid-Cretaceous, the Bahariya Oasis would've been one of the most terrifying places on the planet," says Salem, a new student in the biological sciences graduate program at Ohio University. "How all these huge predators managed to coexist remains a mystery, though it's probably related to their having eaten different things, their having adapted to hunt different prey."

The new vertebra holds implications for the biodiversity of Cretaceous dinosaurs in Egypt and the entire northern region of Africa. It is the oldest known fossil of Abelisauridae from northeastern Africa, and shows that, during the mid-Cretaceous, these carnivorous dinosaurs ranged across much of the northern part of the continent, east to west from present day Egypt to Morocco, to as far south as Niger and potentially beyond. Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus are also known from Niger and Morocco, and a close relative of Bahariasaurus has been found in the latter nation as well, suggesting that this fauna of large to gigantic theropods coexisted throughout much of northern Africa at this time.

How can the discovery of a single neck vertebra lead researchers to conclude that the fossil belongs to a member of Abelisauridae, a kind of carnivorous dinosaur that has never been found in the Bahariya Formation before? The answer is remarkably simple: it is virtually identical to the same bone in other, better-known abelisaurids such as Carnotaurus from Argentina and Majungasaurus from Madagascar. As coauthor and Salem's graduate advisor Patrick O'Connor, who in 2007 published an exhaustive study of the vertebral anatomy of Majungasaurus,explains, "I've examined abelisaur skeletons from Patagonia to Madagascar. My first glimpse of this specimen from photos left no doubt about its identity. Abelisaurid neck bones are so distinctive."

The Site

The Bahariya Oasis is renowned within paleontological circles for having yielded the type specimens (the original, first-discovered, name-bearing fossils) of several extraordinary dinosaurs during the early 20th century, including, most famously, Spinosaurus. Unfortunately, all Bahariya dinosaur fossils collected prior to World War II were destroyed during an Allied bombing of Munich in 1944.

As a graduate student in the early 2000s, study coauthor Matt Lamanna helped make the first dinosaur discoveries from the oasis since the infamous 1944 air raid, including the gargantuan sauropod (long-necked plant-eating dinosaur) Paralititan. "The Bahariya Oasis has taken on near-legendary status among paleontologists for having produced the first-known fossils of some of the world's most amazing dinosaurs," says Lamanna, "but for more than three quarters of a century, those fossils have existed only as pictures in old books." Thankfully, discoveries made during recent expeditions led by researchers from AUC and MUVP -- such as the new abelisaurid vertebra -- are helping to restore the paleontological legacy of this classic site. These expeditions have recovered a wealth of additional fossils that the researchers plan to unveil in the near future.

As team member Sanaa El-Sayed, who co-led the 2016 expedition that collected the abelisaurid vertebra, explains, "This bone is just the first of many important new dinosaur fossils from the Bahariya Oasis."

The Bahariya Formation holds promise to shed further light on mid-Cretaceous African dinosaurs and the vanished ecosystems in which they once lived. Unlike more thoroughly explored rocks of the same age in Morocco that tend to yield isolated bones, the Bahariya Formation appears to preserve partial skeletons of dinosaurs and other land-living animals with a relatively high degree of frequency. The more bones that are preserved within the skeleton of a given fossil backboned species, the more paleontologists can generally learn about it. The propensity of the Bahariya Oasis for producing associated partial skeletons suggests that much remains to be learned from this historic locality.

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Extraterrestrial stone brings first supernova clues to Earth

New chemistry 'forensics' indicate that the stone named Hypatia from the Egyptian desert could be the first tangible evidence found on Earth of a supernova type Ia explosion. These rare supernovas are some of the most energetic events in the universe.

This is the conclusion from a new study published in the journal Icarus, by Jan Kramers, Georgy Belyanin and Hartmut Winkler of the University of Johannesburg, and others.

Since 2013, Belyanin and Kramers have discovered a series of highly unusual chemistry clues in a small fragment of the Hypatia Stone.

In the new research, they eliminate 'cosmic suspects' for the origin of the stone in a painstaking process. They have pieced together a timeline stretching back to the early stages of the formation of Earth, our Sun and the other planets in our solar system.

A cosmic timeline

Their hypothesis about Hypatia's origin starts with a star: A red giant star collapsed into a white dwarf star. The collapse would have happened inside a gigantic dust cloud, also called a nebula.

That white dwarf found itself in a binary system with a second star. The white dwarf star eventually 'ate' the other star. At some point the 'hungry' white dwarf exploded as a supernova type Ia inside the dust cloud.

After cooling, the gas atoms which remained of the supernova Ia started sticking to the particles of the dust cloud.

"In a sense we could say, we have 'caught' a supernova Ia explosion 'in the act', because the gas atoms from the explosion were caught in the surrounding dust cloud, which eventually formed Hypatia's parent body," says Kramers.

A huge 'bubble' of this supernova dust-and-gas-atoms mix never interacted with other dust clouds.

Millions of years would pass, and eventually the 'bubble' would slowly become solid, in a 'cosmic dust bunny' kind of way. Hypatia's 'parent body' would become a solid rock some time in the early stages of formation of our solar system.

This process probably happened in a cold, uneventful outer part of our solar system -- in the Oort cloud or in the Kuiper belt.

At some point, Hypatia's parent rock started hurtling towards Earth. The heat of entry into earth's atmosphere, combined with the pressure of impact in the Great Sand Sea in south-western Egypt, created micro-diamonds and shattered the parent rock.

The Hypatia stone picked up in the desert must be one of many fragments of the original impactor.

"If this hypothesis is correct, the Hypatia stone would be the first tangible evidence on Earth of a supernova type Ia explosion. Perhaps equally important, it shows that an individual anomalous 'parcel' of dust from outer space could actually be incorporated in the solar nebula that our solar system was formed from, without being fully mixed in," says Kramers.

"This goes against the conventional view that dust which our solar system was formed from, was thoroughly mixed."

Three million volts for a tiny sample

To piece together the timeline of how Hypatia may have formed, the researchers used several techniques to analyse the strange stone.

In 2013, a study of the argon isotopes showed the rock was not formed on earth. It had to be extraterrestrial. A 2015 study of noble gases in the fragment indicated that it may not be from any known type of meteorite or comet.

In 2018 the UJ team published various analyses, which included the discovery of a mineral, nickel phosphide, not previously found in any object in our solar system.

At that stage Hypatia was proving difficult to analyse further. The trace metals Kramers and Belyanin were looking for, couldn't really be 'seen in detail' with the equipment they had. They needed a more powerful instrument that would not destroy the tiny sample.

Kramers started analysing a dataset that Belyanin had created a few years before.

In 2015, Belyanin had done a series of analyses on a proton beam at the iThemba Labs in Somerset West. At the time, Dr Wojciech Przybylowicz kept the three-million Volt machine humming along.

In search of a pattern

"Rather than exploring all the incredible anomalies Hypatia presents, we wanted to explore if there is an underlying unity. We wanted to see if there is some kind of consistent chemical pattern in the stone" says Kramers.

Belyanin carefully selected 17 targets on the tiny sample for analysis. All were chosen to be well away from the earthly minerals that had formed in the cracks of the original rock after its impact in the desert.

"We identified 15 different elements in Hypatia with much greater precision and accuracy, with the proton microprobe. This gave us the chemical 'ingredients' we needed, so Jan could start the next process of analysing all the data," says Belyanin.

Proton beam also rules out solar system

The first big new clue from the proton beam analyses was the surprisingly low level of silicon in the Hypatia stone targets. The silicon, along with chromium and manganese, were less than 1% to be expected for something formed within our inner solar system.

Further, high iron, high sulphur, high phosphorus, high copper and high vanadium were conspicuous and anomalous, adds Kramers.

"We found a consistent pattern of trace element abundances that is completely different from anything in the solar system, primitive or evolved. Objects in the asteroid belt and meteors don't match this either. So next we looked outside the solar system," says Kramers.

Not from our neighnourhood

Then Kramers compared the Hypatia element concentration pattern with what one would expect to see in the dust between stars in our solar arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

"We looked to see if the pattern we get from average interstellar dust in our arm of the Milky Way galaxy fits what we see in Hypatia. Again, there was no similarity at all," adds Kramers.

At this point, the proton beam data had also ruled out four 'suspects' of where Hypatia could have formed.

Hypatia did not form on earth, was not part of any known type of comet or meteorite, did not form from average inner solar system dust, and not from average interstellar dust either.

Not a red giant

The next simplest possible explanation for the element concentration pattern in Hypatia, would be a red giant star. Red giant stars are common in the universe.

But the proton beam data ruled out mass outflow from a red giant star too: Hypatia had too much iron, too little silicon and too low concentrations of heavy elements heavier than iron.

Nor a supernova Type II

The next 'suspect' to consider was a supernova type II. Supernovas of type II cook up a lot of iron. They are also a relatively common type of supernova.

Again, the proton beam data for Hypatia ruled out a promising suspect with 'chemistry forensics'. A supernova type II was highly unlikely as the source of strange minerals like nickel phosphide in the pebble. There was also too much iron in Hypatia compared to silicon and calcium.

It was time to closely examine the predicted chemistry of one of the most dramatic explosions in the universe.

Heavy metal factory

A rarer kind of supernova also makes a lot of iron. Supernovas of the type Ia only happen once or twice per galaxy per century. But they manufacture most of the iron (Fe) in the universe. Most of the steel on earth was once the element iron created by Ia supernovas.

Also, established science says that some Ia supernovas leave very distinctive 'forensic chemistry' clues behind. This is because of the way some Ia supernovas are set up.

First, a red giant star at the end of its life collapses into a very dense white dwarf star. White dwarf stars are usually incredibly stable for very long periods and most unlikely to explode. However, there are exceptions to this.

A white dwarf star could start 'pulling' matter off another star in a binary system. One can say the white dwarf star 'eats up' its companion star. Eventually the white dwarf gets so heavy, hot and unstable, it explodes in a supernova Ia.

The nuclear fusion during the supernova Ia explosion should create highly unusual element concentration patterns, accepted scientific theoretical models predict.

Also, the white dwarf star that explodes in a supernova Ia is not just blown to bits, but literally blown to atoms. The supernova Ia matter is delivered into space as gas atoms.

In an extensive literature search of star data and model results, the team could not identify any similar or better chemical fit for the Hypatia stone than a specific set of supernova Ia models.

Forensic elements evidence

"All supernova Ia data and theoretical models show much higher proportions of iron compared to silicon and calcium than supernova II models," says Kramers.

"In this respect, the proton beam laboratory data on Hypatia fit to supernova Ia data and models."

Altogether, eight of the 15 elements analysed conform to the predicted ranges of proportions relative to iron. Those are the elements silicon, sulphur, calcium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron and nickel.

Not all 15 of the analysed elements in Hypatia fit the predictions though. In six of the 15 elements, proportions were between 10 and 100 times higher than the ranges predicted by theoretical models for supernovas of type 1A. These are the elements aluminium, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, copper and zinc.

"Since a white dwarf star is formed from a dying red giant, Hypatia could have inherited these element proportions for the six elements from a red giant star. This phenomenon has been observed in white dwarf stars in other research," adds Kramers.

If this hypothesis is correct, the Hypatia stone would be the first tangible evidence on Earth of a supernova type Ia explosion, one of the most energetic events in the universe.

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