The world's oldest known cases of breast cancer and multiple myeloma have been discovered in the remains of mummies in an ancient Egyptian necropolis in Aswan, Jim Drury reports for Reuters. A 3,800-year old male mummy was found to have multiple myeloma, which is a type of bone marrow cancer, and breast cancer was found in 4,000-year old female one. “It’s an important finding because it shows that cancer already existed before we thought and has been part of humanity since inception. Also it shows there was a complex society behind the two people who died, which took care of them and gave them resources until they died. From a social point of view, that’s really important,” Professor Miguel Cecilio Botella Lopez says (watch, runtime 01:24).

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