Egypt
whyy.org
(Script and audio).
See the above for the full story.
- Hospital Tests Reveal The Secrets Of An Egyptian Mummy
R&D An ancient Egyptian mummy has had quite an afterlife, traveling more than 6,000 miles, spending six decades in private hands, and finally, in 1989, finding a home at the World Heritage Museum (now the Spurlock Museum) at the University of Illinois....
- Education Kit Based On Analysis Of Mummy Remains
Science Alert The perennial fascination of ancient Egyptian mummies is being used by Queensland University of Technology researcher Dr Stephen Hughes to teach children about the application of physics to the field of archaeology. Dr Hughes has produced...
- In The Lab: Looking For Birds In A Mummy
necn.com Video, with partial transcript. Back in 2006 Gerry Conlogue and Ron Beckett used x-rays, a c-t scanner and endoscope to look inside Pa Ib. He's a mummy that has been on display at the PT Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut since 1896....
- Meresamun To Go Under Oi Scanner
Chicago Tribune When doctors at the University of Chicago put the first patient through their new cutting-edge CT scanner, they weren't very concerned about her health. But they did hope to find clues into how she died, 3,000 years ago. Meresamun,...
- The Granville Mummy
This is the mummy and its coffin which in 1825 the mummy was subject of the first ancient Egyptian mummy autopsy by Dr. Augustus Granville. The lady Irtyersenu lived somewhere around 600bce and the mummy is reported to have been found at Thebes. The autopsy...
Egypt
Scientists seek answers from ancient visitors
whyy.org
(Script and audio).
A relic preserved by state-of-the-art science almost 22 centuries ago is undergoing analysis by modern technology. And that analysis must confront not only the ravages of time, but also the damage done by “state-of-the-art” science in decades past.
A blackened, shriveled body in white tissue paper, surrounded by gleaming white-painted metal and plastic. The body is ancient, and the surroundings as modern as they come.
An Egyptian mummy dating back to the second century B.C.E. is being scanned by a laser on a table in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Time hasn’t been kind to the mummy, but scientists of earlier eras took their toll too.
Samantha Cox is a junior anthropology major at Penn.
Cox: The farther back in time you go, the more they were prone to kind of just taking them apart.
She’ll analyze the mummies’ CT scans.
Cox: I guess autopsies started happening more in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s they did them, but before that they weren’t even really looking for any kind of research data, they were just trying to see what was inside. They took them apart. Took out all the wrappings looking for amulets things like that they didn’t care about the bones or, the actual mummy part, they just cared what was in it, all the pretty things.
The mummy on the table is called PUM II. That wasn’t his name; it’s the initials of the Pennsylvania University Museum, which is now the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The two signifies that this was the museum’s 2nd mummy to be given an autopsy… in 1973.
That autopsy and accompanying x-rays yielded a treasure trove of scientific data about PUM II’s health before he died, somewhere around the year 170 B.C.E. For instance, parasites found in his small intestine revealed that sewage probably contaminated the soil along the banks of the river Nile where PUM II’s food was grown.
But that autopsy left its marks. PUM II is missing a big rectangular chunk of his skull. It was removed in that 1973 autopsy.
Modern technology lets researchers look inside without cutting. The CT scan surveys the patient with a laser, creating digital slices of images that create a 3-D composite of what the body looks like, from skin to bones and organs in between.
See the above for the full story.
- Hospital Tests Reveal The Secrets Of An Egyptian Mummy
R&D An ancient Egyptian mummy has had quite an afterlife, traveling more than 6,000 miles, spending six decades in private hands, and finally, in 1989, finding a home at the World Heritage Museum (now the Spurlock Museum) at the University of Illinois....
- Education Kit Based On Analysis Of Mummy Remains
Science Alert The perennial fascination of ancient Egyptian mummies is being used by Queensland University of Technology researcher Dr Stephen Hughes to teach children about the application of physics to the field of archaeology. Dr Hughes has produced...
- In The Lab: Looking For Birds In A Mummy
necn.com Video, with partial transcript. Back in 2006 Gerry Conlogue and Ron Beckett used x-rays, a c-t scanner and endoscope to look inside Pa Ib. He's a mummy that has been on display at the PT Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut since 1896....
- Meresamun To Go Under Oi Scanner
Chicago Tribune When doctors at the University of Chicago put the first patient through their new cutting-edge CT scanner, they weren't very concerned about her health. But they did hope to find clues into how she died, 3,000 years ago. Meresamun,...
- The Granville Mummy
This is the mummy and its coffin which in 1825 the mummy was subject of the first ancient Egyptian mummy autopsy by Dr. Augustus Granville. The lady Irtyersenu lived somewhere around 600bce and the mummy is reported to have been found at Thebes. The autopsy...