The ‘Screaming Mummy’ Was a Murderer Who Killed Himself

He's back. Prince Pentawere, a man who tried (probably successfully) to murder his own father, Pharaoh Ramesses III, and later took his own life after he was put on trial, is now on public display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Pentawere's mummy, popularly known as the "screaming mummy," was not properly mummified. No embalming fluid was used, and his body was allowed to naturally mummify, with his mouth agape and his facial muscles strained in order to make it appear as if the mummy were screaming. Whether he died screaming or whether he was made to look like that after death is unclear. Those burying him then wrapped his body in sheepskin, a material the ancient Egyptians considered to be ritually impure. Eventually, someone placed Pentawere's mummy in a cache of other mummies in a tomb at Deir el-Bahari.

The prince can take solace in the fact that his assassination attempt appears to have been successful. In 2012, a team of scientists studying the mummy of Ramesses III (reign 1184-1155 B.C.) found that Ramesses III died after his throat was slashed, likely in the assassination attempt that Pentawere helped to orchestrate. The scientists also performed genetic analysis, which confirmed that the "screaming mummy" was a son of Ramesses III. And, based on the mummy's unusual burial treatment, the researchers confirmed that it is likely Pentawere's mummy.

https://www.livescience.com/61749-screaming-mummy-backstory.html