I actually wondered that myself, and wrote to the museum. I received a reply
from the curator within hours:

"Egyptian children were traditionally breastfed longer than those in Western
cultures. There was a very large spike in mortality between the ages of
three
and five due to the increased intake of potentially contaminated foods and
water. We did not do any studies of Sherit's diet (yet), but instead based
this
on cultural information. It would probably be better for this to have been
worded, "...was likely fairly recently weaned."

"Her overall bone density, however, does imply an exemplary diet and
nutrition.
Since the ancient diet was low in protein and calcium, this implies to me
that
she was indeed breastfed until fairly close to her death, before her bones
had
thinned as we see with the more adult population."

Ali Crehan Feeney
Quincy, MA
breastfeeding counselor
http://lactiferous.blogspot.com


On 7 Aug 2005 at 19:35, stardustdawn wrote:

> I just came across this article on CNN.  Researchers did a scan of a
> 4-6 year old girl's mummy and can tell she was breastfed until shortly
> before her death.  It doesn't say how they know, but it's interesting
> to find more evidence of extended breastfeeding out there.

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