The first evidence of mummification dates back more than 10,000 years and has been located in the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies of Southeast Asia, according to new research from the Australian National University. At the time, funerary culture dictated that bodies be placed in hyperflexed positions and, before burial, they be subjected to a long process of smoke-drying over fire "at relatively low intensities." Archaeologists claim that "they represent the oldest known cases of this type of artificial mummification in the world."

Egypt has confirmed that the tomb discovered in 2022 in the west of the necropolis of Thebes (Luxor) is that of Tuthmosis II, the fourth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, who reigned from 1490 BC to 1475 BC, and who married his sister. It is the first discovery of an Egyptian royal tomb since Howard Carter showed the tomb of Tutankhamun to the world in 1922. Tuthmosis II is believed to have had a rather weak constitution and died when he was about thirty. Hatshepsut then temporarily reigned in place of her stepson, Tuthmosis III, and became the first female pharaoh in history.