Researchers revealed new images and analyses of an Egyptian mummy from the Spurlock Museum at “The Return of the Mummy” event Wednesday afternoon. The mummy was recently CT scanned again at Carle Foundation Hospital after 20 years.
Although the mummy’s sex could not yet be determined, some of the findings included new images of the teeth, skull, organs and other fractured bones of the nearly 2,000-year-old corpse. An analysis of the mummy’s surroundings, such as the wrappings and the cedar board the mummy lays on, was also presented. Some of the new technology has also revealed pelvic deterioration and various lengths of bones, which may be a sign of malnutrition.
Dr. David Hunt, collections manager at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, analyzed some of the mummy’s various fractures.
“The mummy’s cranium has a few fractures on it due to an extra bone being driven up it,” he said. “The reason for this could have simply been a post-mortem fracture due to mishandling of the specimen. Similar fractures have been found on other Greco-Roman period mummies.”
The mummy is known to have originated from a wealthy family in the Fayum region of Egypt and has been estimated to have been between eight to nine years of age at the time of mummification. Much of the mummy’s skeleton has suffered from post-mortem deterioration due to a combination of increased pressure on the body and poor preservation of the tissues, which led to an infestation of flesh-eating beetles.
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Dr. Joseph Barkmeier, medical director of diagnostic services at Carle Foundation Hospital and Carle Physician Group, revealed some of the new techniques applied to the study, including a 3-D rendering of the mummy’s skeleton.
“The software we have today allows us to see much more than what we had in 1990,“ he said.
The mummy was acquired by the museum in 1989 and has been in the U.S. since the 1920s, said Sarah Wisseman, director of the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials. Wisseman said she knew the Egyptian exhibit would become a rather popular attraction.
“The Spurlock Museum wanted a human mummy to enhance the Egyptian collection because the director knew it would be a great draw,” Wisseman said. “Children especially love mummies. When I give tours, kids still ask, ‘Is that a real person in there?’ and they love the gory details about extracting the internal organs.”
