What did scientists find hidden under a pharaoh's bandages? The answer was a massive throat wound that revealed something historians had missed for more than a century: Ramesses III had almost certainly been violently murdered.

In this video, we follow what happened when scientists finally looked beneath the linen wrappings of Ramesses III using CT scanning in 2012. His mummy had appeared remarkably intact, but the scan revealed a wound nearly seven centimeters wide that reached all the way to the bones of his spine.

But the wound was only the beginning.

The mummy had been wrapped with thick layers of linen around the throat, and a protective Horus-eye amulet had been placed directly over the injury. At the same time, an ancient Egyptian document—the Judicial Papyrus of Turin—preserved the story of a conspiracy inside Ramesses III's own palace.

The plot involved his secondary wife Tiye, her son Pentawere, palace officials, military commanders, and members of the royal administration. The surviving records reveal how the conspiracy was investigated, how the conspirators were punished, and how even some of the judges were eventually punished for misconduct during the trials.

Then the story takes an even stranger turn.

In 1881, archaeologists discovered a mysterious mummy later known as Unknown Man E. Its unusual burial, genetic relationship to Ramesses III, and evidence of deliberate ritual impurity eventually led researchers to identify him as Pentawere—the prince accused of conspiring against his own father.

In this video, you'll discover:

How scientists discovered the hidden wound on Ramesses III
What the 2012 CT scan revealed about his death
Why the throat wound was almost certainly fatal
Why a Horus-eye amulet was placed over the injury
How the Judicial Papyrus of Turin records the assassination conspiracy
Who Tiye and Pentawere were
Which palace officials were involved in the conspiracy
How the conspirators were punished
Why some of the judges were punished during the trial
Who the mysterious "Unknown Man E" was
How DNA helped identify Pentawere
Why Pentawere's unusual burial may have been intended to deny him the afterlife

This is the darker side of ancient Egyptian history: a pharaoh whose death was hidden beneath thousands of years of linen, a conspiracy preserved in a courtroom document, and a mysterious mummy that eventually helped reveal what happened inside the royal palace.

Timestamps
00:00 — The Pharaoh Who Looked Peaceful
01:21 — The CT Scan Changed Everything
02:14 — The Wound Hidden Under the Bandages
03:11 — Why Was the Wound Covered?
04:05 — The Murder Was Already Documented
05:12 — The Plot to Kill Ramesses III
06:18 — The Mysterious “Screaming Mummy”
07:16 — DNA Reveals the Suspect
08:25 — The Murder Hidden for 3,000 Years
09:20 — It Just Took Them Until 2012

#RamessesIII #AncientEgypt #EgyptianHistory #AncientHistory #EgyptianMummy #Pharaoh #MummyMystery #Pentawere #AncientMysteries #DarkHistory #HistoryDocumentary #Archaeology #TheDarkLedger

Subscribe to The Dark Ledger for more dark, surprising, and overlooked stories from history.