Evidence-based palaeopathology: meta-analysis of PubMed-listed scientific studies on ancient Egyptian mummies

There is a plethora of published scientific studies on ancient Egyptian mummies. Surprisingly, hitherto there is no systematic review of this research, which would help to assess the quality of this vast body of published literature and thus to increase "evidence" in palaeopathological research. The aim of this study was to review all PubMed-listed scientific studies performed on Ancient Egyptian mummies. A total of 131 studies were found in the database for the selected time period, 1977-2005. Our "meta-analysis" showed that the number of publications per year varies enormously. The majority of mummies examined date to the third intermediate and Ptolemaic periods; data from other time periods were lacking. Identification of the cause of death and (14)C-dating of the mummy or funeral goods were rarely addressed. There was a tendency towards an increased use of non-invasive examination methods in more modern times. Our meta-analysis addressed both scientific content (e.g. palaeopathological findings/examination methods) and publication issues (e.g. location of the first author or year of publication) in these studies. Based on our experience, we recommend some minimum publication standards for palaeopathologic studies on ancient mummies, which shall improve evidence-based research in palaeopathology in general.