"Living Fossils": Anatomies of Race and Reproduction in Modern Egypt.

This article examines the scientific afterlife of Queen Henhenit's mummy, focusing on its role in twentieth-century Egyptian medicine, anthropology, and racial science. Henhenit, a Nubian queen consort from the Eleventh Dynasty, became notable for having the oldest documented vesicovaginal fistula, a childbirth injury that linked ancient pathology to contemporary maternal health concerns in Egypt. Her pelvic remains were studied extensively at Cairo's Qasr al-ʿAini Medical School by doctors such as Douglas E. Derry and Naguib Mahfouz, whose research intertwined colonial and nationalist agendas to construct racialized narratives about Egyptian identity, reproduction, and labor, particularly regarding Upper Egyptian women deemed "living fossils" of Pharaonic ancestry. The article highlights the ethical complexities surrounding the use of women's bodies—both ancient and living—in scientific inquiry, the racialized biopolitics of medicine in Egypt, and the enduring legacies of these practices as reflected in Mahfouz's Obstetric and Gynecological Museum, where Henhenit's remains remain on display.