Prince Pentawere
There are some faces from Ancient Egypt that seem determined not to be forgotten. Among them is that of a young man who died more than 3,000 years ago, his head thrown back, his mouth gaping open, and his features contorted into an expression that has disturbed and fascinated generations of observers.
Known to Egyptologists simply as Unknown Man E, he has acquired a rather more theatrical title in the popular imagination; “the Screaming Mummy”.
But behind this haunting appearance lies a mystery considerably more intriguing than the expression upon his face. For this unfortunate young man may have been Prince Pentawere, a son of King Ramesses III, whose involvement in one of Ancient Egypt’s most notorious royal conspiracies ended in disgrace and death.
It is a tale of ambition, betrayal, murder and a most peculiar burial. And, as we shall discover, even the dead do not always surrender their secrets willingly.
A Prince Born into Royal Intrigue
Tomb QV55
Pentawere lived during the 20th Dynasty, in the final centuries of Egypt’s New Kingdom. His father, Ramesses III (c. 1184–1153 B.C.), was among the last great warrior-kings, celebrated for defending Egypt against foreign invasions and maintaining the splendour of its royal institutions.
Yet behind the imposing walls of the palace, the king’s household was far from tranquil.
Pentawere was the son of a royal wife named Tiye, not to be confused with the celebrated Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III, who had lived more than two centuries earlier. Although Tiye enjoyed royal status, her son was not the designated heir to the throne. That distinction belonged to another prince, the future Ramesses IV.
We know frustratingly little about Pentawere’s childhood, education or personality. As a royal son, he may well have enjoyed the privileges of palace life, but no surviving account offers us a portrait of the young man himself.
Was he ambitious? Resentful? Easily persuaded? Or simply a son caught within the formidable ambitions of his mother?
History, unfortunately, has preserved the accusation rather than the answer.
The Harem Conspiracy: Murder in the Palace
Cromwell Productions, 1996
Towards the end of Ramesses III’s reign, a conspiracy emerged within the royal household. Its principal instigator, according to the surviving judicial record, was Queen Tiye, who sought to replace the appointed heir with her own son, Pentawere.
The plot was no mere domestic quarrel. It involved women of the royal harem, palace officials, military personnel and other influential figures. Additional documents reveal attempts to employ magical practices, including wax figures intended to weaken the royal guards.
Ostracon of Ramesses III crushing an enemy
The conspirators were seeking nothing less than the overthrow of the established succession.
Their activities are preserved in the remarkable Judicial Papyrus of Turin (Museo Egizio, Cat. 1875), a document recording the proceedings against those implicated in the conspiracy.
For centuries, the precise fate of Ramesses III remained uncertain. Although the papyrus describes the conspiracy, it is curiously restrained concerning the king’s death.
Ramesses III Cartouche Discovered in Jordan
Then modern science revealed what the ancient record had left unsaid.
In 2012, researchers examining the mummy of Ramesses III discovered a devastating wound across his throat. The injury was so severe that it would almost certainly have caused his death. Hidden within the wound was an Eye of Horus amulet, apparently placed there by the embalmers to assist his restoration in the afterlife.
The murder of the king was no longer merely a suspicion.
Yet the conspirators had failed in their ultimate objective. Pentawere did not become Pharaoh. Instead, Ramesses IV succeeded his father, and those involved in the conspiracy were brought before a specially appointed court.
The Discovery of “the Screaming Mummy”
In 1881, a remarkable collection of royal mummies came to light at Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes.
Concealed within a cache now designated as The Royal Cache DB320 (TT320) were the remains of some of Egypt’s most illustrious rulers, relocated in antiquity to protect them from tomb robbers.
Among these distinguished occupants was one particularly peculiar individual.
When the mummy was examined in 1886, the French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero encountered a young man whose appearance was unlike that of the carefully prepared royal dead surrounding him.
His mouth was stretched open. His head was drawn backwards. His features appeared almost painfully distorted.
To Victorian observers, the face suggested the final moments of a particularly dreadful death.
Maspero considered the possibility that the young man had been poisoned, interpreting the body’s appearance as evidence of violent suffering.
But there was another mystery.
Unlike the richly prepared mummies of Egypt’s royalty, this individual had received an extraordinarily unconventional burial.
His body had not undergone the usual elaborate treatment expected of a high-ranking Egyptian. The internal organs had apparently been left in place, while his remains were covered with animal skin, generally identified in early accounts as sheepskin.
Such material was particularly curious in an Egyptian funerary context, where certain animal skins could carry associations of ritual impurity.
His coffin, too, was strangely anonymous. Although made of good-quality wood, it bore no identifying inscription, and evidence suggested that it had been altered to accommodate its occupant.
Here was a man apparently important enough to rest among kings, yet denied the ordinary splendour of a royal burial.
Who was he, and why had he been treated so differently?…
