Our Museums

Takabuti’s Origins

Takabuti is arguably one of Ulster Museum’s most iconic residents. The first mummy to be unwrapped on the island of Ireland in 1835.

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In 2006, work started to explore who Takabuti was and what her life was like but it wasn’t until 2019 when this work neared completion. The results of the Takabuti Project (2007-2009 and 2018-2020), a collaboration led by archaeologists in National Museums NI, Queen's University Belfast (Dept. of Archaeology and Palaeoecology)  and the University of Manchester (KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology), have culminated in the publication of a new book – The Life and Times of Takabuti in Ancient Egypt: Investigating the Belfast Mummy (Liverpool, 2021).