Proof that couch potatoes existed 2,000 years ago
This ancient mummy sat around too much, loaded up on carbs and suffered from modern afflictions.
Jerusalem's Israel Museum is displaying something we should all find familiar: a guy who lazed around and ate a bunch of carbs. No, it's not you on your cushy summer job, unless you happen to be a 2,200-year-old Egyptian mummy.
But not just any mummy – a mummy who could probably have stood to use an elliptical machine every now and then. The scientists conducted a CT scan earlier this year and found that the former man must have suffered from some pretty familiar afflictions. He had osteoporosis, indicating that he may have led a sedentary lifestyle (inactivity is one possible cause of osteoporosis).
"Osteoporosis is a disease that is characteristic of the 20th century, when people don't work so hard," explained Galit Bennett, the exhibit curator at the Israel Museum. "We were very surprised that there were people who didn't do physical work and that it affected their bodies like this man here."
He also had tooth decay, which the scientists think may have come from eating too many carbohydrates (apparently the Atkins diet didn't exist then).
The man was about 30 or 40 when he died (probably all those thrones and fancy donuts), and he was about 5 feet 6 inches tall. He originally came from Akhmim, a town south of modern-day Cairo, and was given to a museum in Jerusalem in the late 1920s. His nickname? "Alex."
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