This interpretation changes the emotional landscape of the discovery significantly.

A 25-year-old woman who had been suffering from chronic infection and possibly cancer is not the same figure as the romantic image of a peak-of-health Scythian warrior-princess.

She was someone who had been ill, possibly severely ill, for a significant portion of her short life.

These health findings should be treated with appropriate caution.

The interpretation of skeletal pathology in ancient specimens involves significant uncertainties.

The evidence for cancer in particular — while reported by researchers who examined the remains — has not achieved universal acceptance in the archaeological community.