The latest attraction at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale may also be one of the oldest: a 2,300-year-old Egyptian mummy named "Annie."
"Annie" was unveiled at the museum Wednesday, and will be one of 65 artifacts in the new Lost Egypt exhibit, which will go on display Saturday.
It's believed "Annie" lived during a phase known as the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BCE) and was buried in an area called Akhmim. A CT scan performed in 2006 confirmed she was a girl in her late teens, and while her cause of death is unknown it's possible she was a drowning victim.
"It was likely that her death came from drowning in the Nile. In ancient Egypt that was considered sacred and so even though it's likely that they couldn't identify her as a person, that she was given a very, a really lovely burial, a sort of send off to her afterlife because of her sacred status from being in the Nile," said Mimi Leveque, with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
The mummy first appeared in the records of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in the spring of 1885. It had been acquired by Dr. Charles Huffnagel, who was US consul to Calcutta.
