Em Hotep! » Forensic Mummy Studies http://emhotep.net Egypt for the Curious Layperson and the Budding Scholar Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:29:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Introduction to Mummy Forensics: Terms, Concepts, and Resources http://emhotep.net/2011/12/26/mummies/introduction-to-mummy-forensics-terms-concepts-and-resources/ http://emhotep.net/2011/12/26/mummies/introduction-to-mummy-forensics-terms-concepts-and-resources/#comments Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:12:31 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=6487 Mummy forensics is more than just a show on The History Channel, it is an entire field of Egyptology that helps us understand how the ancient Egyptians lived, worked, played, died, and how they prepared for the afterlife.

In this installment of the Em Hotep mummy series (which will eventually become the Mummy Section) we will take a look at the terms and concepts related to the various methods Egyptologists use to study mummies with links to carefully selected websites and articles to further your own investigation.  Whether you are working on a term paper or just interested in mummies, this primer will get you started.

And just a quick note—some of the subheadings in this primer, such as the part on facial reconstruction, will have their own more detailed sections that will include more media, as well as original interviews, so stay tuned!

 

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines forensics as:

1:  belonging to, used in, or suitable to courts of judicature or to public discussion and debate

2:  argumentative, rhetorical

3:  relating to or dealing with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems

While there are certainly legal issues to be considered when conducting analyses on mummified human remains, that is not really what we mean by mummy forensics.  But this definition is still useful to our discussion.  Let’s break it down.

1:  Mummy forensics will not necessarily prepare you for your day in legal court, but it does prepare you to discuss and debate about mummies in the court of academia and public opinion.  The first is important if you want to earn a degree or publish a study.  The latter is important if you want to get funding for your work!

2:  Mummy forensics is often argumentative, as when the results challenge long-held theories, and can become rather rhetorical when it challenges long-held opinions.  You generally aim for the former and try to limit the latter.  Challenging established theories is how science moves forward, by either confirming or refuting the results of previous work.  However, Egyptology can be notoriously personal at times, so maybe having your rhetoric in order isn’t such a bad idea after all.

3:  Mummy forensics is all about the application of scientific knowledge to answering questions, preferably without legal problems.

So mummy forensics is a little like a cross between CSI and House with an occasional dash of reality TV, and a whole lot of really technical and scientific know-how.  In other words, it’s kind of like the Mummy Forensics TV show, with all of the hours and hours and hours of work that is normally edited out, left in.

 

In this introduction we will outline the different methods Egyptologists use to study mummies, their strengths and weaknesses, and the general terms and concepts of the field.  Each section will be followed by links to relevant websites and articles to help you explore further.  A great introduction to this subject is Medical Science and Egyptology, by Rosalie David, and this primer might be thought of as an annotated outline of her article.

If you wish to go to the source, and you are strongly encouraged to do so, it comprises the third chapter of Richard H. Wilkinson’s Egyptology Today (Cambridge University Press, 2008).  For a more complete treatment see The Mummy’s Tale (St. Martin’s Press, 1993), by Rosalie David and Edmund Tapp.

Before we begin I should mention that while the outline is written with the general reader in mind, the links to outside sources will range from kid-appropriate to post doctorate.  Additionally, some sections of the outline can get fairly technical.  While most of us know what x-rays are and how they might be useful to mummy studies, some of us (myself included) might glaze over a bit when it comes to, say, immunohistochemisty.  That’s ok, there will be no pop quiz.

But like any investigation, you might find that some of the more daunting terms break down pretty easily.  Paleo-odontology might sound like some wing’d saurian beast ready to swoop down and carry you away to her nest, but in actuality it’s just the study (ology) of really old (paleo) teeth (odont).  And that is worth knowing because the study of teeth is an important part of any mummy study.  Don’t let xenoglossophobia push you around!  Learn and enjoy!

 

 

 

Autopsy

Unwrapping and dissecting a mummy, followed by a visual and physical examination of the body (morbid anatomy).

Margaret Murray (foreground) performing an autopsy on a mummy under the watchful eyes of Flinders Petrie (far left, such unwrappings were a one-way trip for the mummy (courtesy of University of Manchester)

Margaret Murray (foreground) performing an autopsy on a mummy under the watchful eyes of Flinders Petrie (far left), such unwrappings were a one-way trip for the mummy (courtesy of University of Manchester)

 

Provides more detailed information than less invasive methods

Allows researchers to take physical samples from any part of the mummy

Destructive and irreversible—once a mummy is dissected, you can’t put it back together

Usually only performed on mummies that were already in a poor condition, nevertheless there are ethical and cultural considerations to performing an autopsy on ancient human remains

 

Last week marked the start of an extensive examination of mummies in the Manchester Museum by a medical team led by Dr. Rosalie David, assistant keeper of the Museum’s archaeological department…the most special treatment is being given to Mummy No. 1770, the unwrapping of which began last week.

 

 

 

Radiology

The use of X-rays to examine the internal contents of sarcophagi and mummies, radiology provides archaeological, sociological, and biomedical information about mummies.

Tori Randall, curator for the Department of Physical Anthropology at the San Diego Museum of Man, CT scanning a 550-year-old mummy of a child (courtesy of U.S. Navy)

 

Fluoroscopy—the transmission of images from x-ray to a television screen

Tomography—X-rays of a section or slice of tissue on a plane allowing more detailed information about specific areas of the mummy

Computed tomography (CT) scan—the use of computers to assemble tomographic images into a highly detailed navigable 3D rendering of the internal structures of a mummy or sarcophagus

Minimally invasive and non-destructive, radiography is the primary means of studying mummies

Allows skeletal maturity and development to be evaluated, but…

Genetic and nutritional differences can make age and development determinations in ancient skeletons difficult when based on modern comparisons—modern humans are generally bigger

Can show disease and trauma in skeletal and soft tissue

Open to misinterpretation—for example, radiology cannot distinguish between trauma and post-mortem effects of the process of mummification itself, but…

Can also help with the interpretation of the mummification process by showing natron packets, pooled resin, positioning of the arms, etc.

Requires medical specialists to conduct and assist with the interpretation of the results, making it an interdisciplinary pursuit by necessity

Limited in-situ applications, although this is changing as the technology and methodology improves

Enhances data gained by other methods such as dental studies and endoscopy

Helps make forensic facial reconstructions possible

 

Modern times are allowing us to examine mummies in a different way—through x-ray analysis, CAT scanning, and DNA testing. The times of opening a mummy physically have faded in the past and now much of the work is done through advancements in technology. New technological advancements are allowing us to peel back the layers digitally, thus, giving us a view of the preservation process without destroying any evidence.

 

The Ancient Egyptians mummified the dead because they believed it helped the soul find its body in the afterlife…Let’s discover more by looking at three REAL mummies’ photos and x-rays.

 

For years mummies were studied by means of an autopsy – very informative, but very destructive. The CT scanner allows us to undertake a virtual dissection – yielding huge amounts of information, but also leaving the mummy intact for future people to see and to analyze in ways we can’t yet imagine.

 

An X-ray on the 2,500-year-old boy, who was on display at Torquay museum, revealed that the coffin is 1,000 years older than the mummy inside…And it has raised the possibility that the child, named Psamtek by staff, was not the first occupant.

 

The Field Museum in Chicago is using CT scans to learn more about mummies in its collection. These X-ray reconstructions helped confirm the age and gender of seven Egyptian and three Peruvian mummies along with details on the contents and construction of their coffins…One Egyptian mummy looked great from the outside. But the scans turned up that this particular set of remains had no hips, arms or torso.

 

For Meresamun, a female Egyptian mummy and one of the Oriental Institute’s main attractions, the afterlife proved to be much harsher than her time growing up as a member of her country’s elite. A high-ranking and wealthy priestess in the temple of Amun, king of the ancient Egyptian gods, Meresamun suffered several fractured bones after her death, according to discoveries made by U of C radiologist Michael Vannier using new x-ray technology.

 

Computed tomography (CT) has proved to be a valuable investigative tool for mummy research and is the method of choice for examining mummies. It allows for noninvasive insight, especially with virtual endoscopy, which reveals detailed information about the mummy’s sex, age, constitution, injuries, health, and mummification techniques used. CT also supplies three-dimensional information about the scanned object.

 

Computer tomography has been used to image and reconstruct in 3-D an Egyptian mummy from the collection of the British Museum. This study of Tjentmutengebtiu, a priestess from the 22nd dynasty (945-715 BC) revealed invaluable information of a scientific, Egyptological and paleopathological nature without mutilation and destruction of the painted cartonage case or linen wrappings.

 

 

 

Paleo-odontology

Forensic dentistry which allows researchers to collect both social and physiological data from mummified or skeletal remains.

Mummy teeth can tell us about the age, diet, habits, lifestyle, and social class of people who lived thousands of years ago (courtesy of the Rosicrucian Museum)

Mummy teeth can tell us about the age, diet, habits, lifestyle, and social class of people who lived thousands of years ago (courtesy of the Rosicrucian Museum)

 

Includes the study of ancient bread samples, textual evidence regarding diet, and how ancient dentistry was practiced

Can be conducted on skulls, however, the presence of soft tissue obviously will provide more information

Generally more accessible—Skulls and mummified heads are fairly portable (with proper permits, of course)

Direct examination of the teeth and gums can help interpret data garnered by other methods, particularly radiography

Can help determine the cause of death—evidence of multiple dental abscesses, for example, in an otherwise healthy person indicates septicemia (blood poisoning) as a probable cause of death

Can indicate diet changes in broad populations.  For example, tooth decay was rare during pharaonic times, but became more widespread during the Graeco-Roman Period, which could suggest dietary changes, cultural infusion, new trade routes, etc.

Helps with age determination

Provides evidence of early dentistry, such as resin fillings and lanced infected cysts

 

Dental Anthropology is the study of teeth in a perspective beyond clinical science. That perspective includes the study of dental growth, theories on dental origin, primate dentition, and population variation.

 

Scientists on Thursday revealed another detail about the 4,000 year old mummy, Pa-lb, which is pronounced paw eeeb. On Wednesday, doctors from the University of Connecticut Dental School examined the mummy’s ancient teeth and found that extreme periodontal disease is what probably killed her.

 

After examining research of more than 3,000 mummies, anatomists and paleopathologists at the University of Zurich concluded that 18 percent of all mummies in case reports showed a nightmare array of dental diseases.

 

A broken tooth has become the key to identifying the mummy of Hatshepsut, the woman who ruled ancient Egypt as both queen and king nearly 3,500 years ago.

 

 

 

Endoscopy

A virtually (but not quite) non-destructive method of viewing and obtaining tissue, bone, and other samples from inside a mummy, endoscopy allows the examination by use of an endoscope, a medical device consisting of a long, thin tube which has a probe, lens, and light source on one end and an eye piece, monitor, and mummy researcher on the other.

Dr. Michael Mosely and Egyptologist Rosalie David perform and endoscopy on a mummy (courtesy of BBC Two)

Dr. Michael Mosely and Rosalie David perform an endoscopy on a mummy (courtesy of BBC Two)

 

Modern endoscopes are attached to a screen or camera

Older endoscopes use a microscope-style eyepiece and are more portable, but technological advances (smaller cameras) are making older endoscopes obsolete

Medical endoscopes are flexible and more capable of moving throughout the mummy, but less flexible industrial endoscopes are also used because they are more capable of penetrating rigid mummified tissue

Endoscopes can be inserted through existing openings (natural orifices and holes from the mummification process and other post-mortem trauma) which helps minimize further damaging the mummy

Retrieval forceps at the end of the probe allow tissue samples to be taken from within the mummy which would otherwise require an autopsy

Can reveal details regarding the mummification process, such as whether the entrails were returned to the body in natron packs rather than stored in canopic jars, how resin was used throughout the body, whether the brain was extracted, and other details that, when compared to what we know about mummification procedures during different periods, can help determine the age of the mummy as well as provide details about social class

Does not provide as much access as a full autopsy

Can also be useful for peering into sarcophagi and other structures with small openings

 

As part of the ground breaking Mummies of the World exhibition’s arrival in Philadelphia, doctors and researchers utilized state-of-the-art medical technology to perform a non-invasive computerized tomography (CT) scan and laparoscopic endoscopy on a South American  infant  mummy and Hungarian adult female mummy, respectively, at Lankenau Medical Center on Thursday, June 9, 2011.

 

Because invasive techniques cannot easily be applied when investigating such mummies, the need for non-invasive techniques incurring minimal damage has increased among researchers. Therefore, we wished to confirm whether endoscopy, which has been used in non-invasive and minimally invasive studies of mummies around the world, is an effective tool for study of Korean mummies as well.

 

Gastroenterologist Martin Mark, M.D., assisted by Celine Vollmer, Endoscopy nurse manager, performed an endoscopy on the mummy’s skull and upper torso…The scope revealed a heart and brain inside the mummy — a pleasant surprise to everyone — since traditionally many of the organs were usually removed during mummification.

 

One individual was selected for additional endoscopic and microscopic correlation with CT findings in the thoracic cavity. The collapsed heart was identified by CT. A percutaneous biopsy of the heart was then performed with a flexible fiberoptic endoscope, passed through a small hole drilled into the chest wall.

 

 

 

Paleopathology

The study of disease in ancient populations.

CT scan analysis of the 3,500-year-old mummy of Ahmose-Meryet-Amon, a Theban princess who died in her 40’s, suffered from hardening of the arteries (Courtesy of National Geographic)

CT scan analysis of the 3,500-year-old mummy of Ahmose-Meryet-Amon, a Theban princess who died in her 40’s, revealed she suffered from hardening of the arteries (Courtesy of National Geographic)

 

Analysis of bone and mummified tissue can provide a wealth of information about diet, lifestyle, and disease

Morbid anatomy—visual (eyes only) examination of the body

Histopathology—the study of changes in the tissue cause by disease

Histopathology can also reveal details about the mummification process, such as how the tissues were affected by preservatives like natron

Histology—the use of light microscopy to show the microscopic structure of tissue and any changes caused by disease

Electron microscopy—the use of a beam of electrons to illuminate tissue in order to render a highly detailed image and extremely fine structural details, can also reveal such things as the presence of heavy metals in bone and other tissue

Immunohistochemistry—the use of specialized staining agents to increase the likelihood of identifying cell constituents in tissue

Paleohistology—the use of histological techniques to study ancient tissue, the tissue must first be rehydrated and fixed then frozen and cut into slices which can be stained for microscopic analysis

Limited by the usefulness of the tissue sample being analyzed—there is no way of knowing if the sample contains useful data until it is under the scope, and analyzing useless samples is as expensive and time consuming as analyzing useful ones

 

The Paleopathology Association is composed of researchers, scientists, and students from many fields, including physical anthropology, medicine, archaeology, and Egyptology from around the world.

 

Health, disease, and culture are studied in medical anthropology both from a comparative and historical perspective. Mummies and the diseases they reveal offer insight into the past; they are time travelers from another age. Diagnosis via paleopathology is difficult; however, considerable success has been achieved in uncovering afflictions from the past. Infectious, congenital, neoplastic (cancer), and traumatic conditions are all present in abundance.

 

By taking x-rays, we can see fractures, the degeneration of bone from osteoarthritis — which was very common among the Egyptians — and make assumptions about lifestyle and diet. Muscles leave an imprint on bone telling how big they were and how much they were used, which can provide information as well.

 

Paleopathology and radiology both provide a quantity of data about the health status of past populations, in addition to the body conservation techniques adopted.

 

 

 

Immunological Techniques

The use of radiographic and direct microscopic analysis of tissue to diagnose disease in mummies.

Using immunological techniques, researchers were able to isolate specific chemicals responsible for the transmission of nerve disease in the spine of a 3,000-year-old mummy (Courtesy of C. H. V. Hoyle)

Using immunological techniques, researchers were able to isolate specific chemicals responsible for the transmission of nerve disease in the spine of a 3,000-year-old mummy (Courtesy of C. H. V. Hoyle)

 

Limited by access to radiographic equipment which is usually only available in a hospital and requires assistance from doctors and technicians in the medical field

To be useful the tissue must contain evidence such as parasites or other histological information

Does not require large individual samples and thus can be applied to a larger number of samples

Unlike living tissue, detection of antibodies (important in identifying disease) in ancient tissue is extremely difficult, and so researchers are usually limited to looking for signs of antigens associated with worms, eggs, and other parasitical remains

Immunocytochemistry—a method of looking for antigens in a tissue sample by targeting specific protein antigens to see if the sample expresses the antigen in question.  For example, looking for remaining antigens associated with a particular parasite that could lead to identifying an otherwise undetectable disease

 

Paleoparasitology in the Old World has mainly concerned the study of latrine sediments and coprolites collected from mummified bodies or archaeological strata, mostly preserved by natural conditions. Human parasites recovered include cestodes, trematodes, and nematodes. The well preserved conditions of helminth eggs allowed paleoepidemiological approaches taking into account the number of eggs found by archaeological stratum. Tentatively, sanitation conditions were assessed for each archaeological period.

 

Centuries of silence cannot keep ancient Egyptian mummies from sharing their secrets with scientists. From archaeologists determining cultural practices to chemists studying embalming, mummies have revealed libraries of information. Now such mummies are also yielding evidence about the diseases of the past by giving up the facts encoded in their preserved DNA, and new research may have pinned down the ancient homeland of a modern scourge.

 

Although Schistosoma worms infect millions of people today they were evident in ancient Egyptian times, with one of the classic symptoms “haematuria” being described in various medical papyri.  A current epidemiology study means diagnostic tools that can be applied to ancient dehydrated tissues are now needed.  To overcome this immunocytochemistry has been used, producing positive staining to S. Mansoni and haematobium antigens in both modern and ancient tissues, suggesting that Schistosoma antigens may still be present after thousands of years.

 

This paper responds to Eisele (1994) and Eisele et al. (1995), which question the preservation of protein residues on archaeological lithic tools and the detection and characterization of such proteins, if they do indeed survive.

 

 

 

DNA Analysis and Paleoserology

The study of genetics and blood groups in ancient remains.

A major genetic study concluded in 2010 proposed to trace the familial lines of Tutankhamun, but raised as many questions as it answered

A major genetic study concluded in 2010 and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association proposed to identify disease and trace the familial lines of Tutankhamun and other Eighteenth Dynasty dignitaries, but raised as many questions as it answered

 

Allows tracing of kinship patterns and population movements

Paleoserology is not considered as reliable as it once was, with genetic studies being the preferred method of tracing kinship and migration today

Only small amounts of bone or tissue are required for genetic analysis

Ancient DNA is hard to sample as it survives in very small quantities and is often rendered useless due to damage, decay, and contamination

To reiterate, contamination of the sample is VERY difficult to prevent, as the sample is by definition extremely old and may have been handled in modern times before strict protocols were set in place.  Might be compared to trying to analyze a crime scene in a subway station.

The mummification process itself tends to render DNA samples useless

Mummies from newly excavated sites and museums where strict handling protocols have been in place are best candidates for DNA analysis

Can help determine the sex of a mummy, familial relations, and ultimately can help produce a database that showing origins, migration patterns, and composition of ancient societies

Can provide information about infectious and parasitic diseases in ancient populations

 

  • Population Genetics by C. L. Johnson (University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Dentistry)

Populations are a group of interbreeding individuals and all of the alleles found in that population are referred to as the gene pool. While all members of Homo sapiens are capable of interbreeding, mate choice is in our lives is really quite limited. Factors that determine with whom we mate are geographical, ecological, and social.  Within a population, geneticists are concerned with gene frequencies for specific traits.

 

Egypt’s mummies are among the best preserved of all ancient remains, but even in them the recovery of DNA — the genetic fingerprint of every individual — is insidiously difficult. Molecular biologist Scott Woodward of Brigham Young University may know this better than anyone; he and his lab recovered the DNA from hundreds of Egyptian mummies, from commoners to pharaohs.

 

  • Ancestry and pathology in King Tutankhamun’s family by Zahi Hawass, Yehia Z. Gad, Somaia Ismail, Rabab Khairat, Dina Fathalla, Naglaa Hasan, Amal Ahmed, Hisham Elleithy, Markus Ball, Fawzi Gaballah, Sally Wasef, Mohamed Fateen, Hany Amer, Paul Gostner, Ashraf Selim, Albert Zink, Carsten M. Pusch (Journal of American Medical Association, 2010)

The New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, comprising the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, spanned the mid-16th to the early 11th centuries BC. The late 18th dynasty, which included the reigns of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, was an extraordinary time. The identification of a number of royal mummies from this era, the exact relationships between some members of the royal family, and possible illnesses and causes of death have been matters of debate.

 

The paper Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family by Hawass al…states that the mummy in KV55 is “probably” Akhenaten…The media has accepted the attribution as affirmed fact, although the attribution has attracted considerable comment and debate with a number of writers questioning the forensic data.  I believe, however, that the correct focus of dissent to the attribution should be the STR analysis which shows that the KV55 mummy is highly unlikely to be Akhenaten and that an alternative family tree is a better fit to the genetic findings of the Hawass study.

 

Some researchers claim to have analysed DNA from Egyptian mummies.  Others say that’s impossible. Could new sequencing methods bridge the divide?

 

Among the results: King Tut was probably not murdered, despite some popular theories to the contrary. And he probably didn’t suffer from a long list of diseases that experts have speculated about, including, as the report lists them (deep breath), “Marfan syndrome, Wilson-Turner X-linked mental retardation syndrome, Fröhlich syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, androgen insensitivity syndrome, aromatase excess syndrome in conjunction with sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome or Antley-Bixler syndrome or a variant form.”

 

Egypt plans to conduct a DNA test on a 3,500-year-old mummy to determine if it is King Thutmose I, one of the most important pharaohs, the country’s chief archaeologist said Thursday.  Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities chief, said the DNA test and an X-ray will be carried out on a mummy found at the site of ancient Thebes on the west bank of the Nile, what is today Luxor’s Valley of the Kings, the Middle East News Agency reported.

 

 

 

Instrumental Methods of Analysis

The use of techniques such as mass spectrometry and gas chromatography to study artifacts such linen wrappings, cosmetic and therapeutic substances and plants buried with the mummy, as well as the mummy itself, such as hair and fatty tissue analysis.

Meet Henut Taui… when gas-chromatography—mass spectrometry revealed the presence of cocaine and nicotine in her system, two drugs that should not have been on that side of the Atlantic during her lifetime, much controversy ensued (courtesy of BBC/Channel Four)

Bad girl or just misunderstood? When gas-chromatography—mass spectrometry revealed the presence of cocaine and nicotine in Henut Taui's system, two drugs that should not have been on that side of the Atlantic during her lifetime, much controversy ensued (courtesy of BBC/Channel Four)

 

Mass spectrometry is a powerful analytical technique that is used to identify unknown compounds, to quantify known compounds, and to elucidate the structure and chemical properties of molecules (source: American Society for Mass Spectrometry).

Methods such as gas-liquid spectrometry allows researchers to isolate the individual ingredients of the resin and other funerary/embalming substances

Identification and examination of psychoactive and narcotic substances with instrumental methods within specific contexts allows the study of drug use in ancient populations for medical, religious, and social purposes

Instrumental surveys with techniques such as radioimmunoassay and gas-chromatography—mass spectrometry can identify substances that are not native to the local area, which helps identify relations (such as trade) with other distant cultures

As with DNA analysis, contamination of samples is a persistent problem

 

For the most part, the techniques scientists use to identify narcotics and other drugs from the hair and tissue of a mummy and chemical compounds from a plant like the Egyptian blue lotus…are the same. Researchers Vic Garner and David Counsell of the University of Manchester relied on a sophisticated version of a common chemical analysis technique: mass spectrometry.

 

Ancient Egyptians styled their hair using a fat-based ‘gel’…Microscopy using light and electrons revealed that nine of the mummies had hair coated in a mysterious fat-like substance. The gas chromatography–mass spectrometry was used to separate out the different molecules in the samples, and found that the coating contained biological long-chain fatty acids including palmitic acid and stearic acid.

 

In anthropology, objective parameters to adequately describe storage conditions and the preservation of mummies have yet to be identified. Considering that fatty acids degrade to stable products, we analysed their profile in human mummies and in control samples by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS).

 

The recent findings of cocaine, nicotine, and hashish in Egyptian mummies by Balabanova et. al. have been  criticized on grounds that: contamination of the mummies may have occurred, improper techniques may have been used, chemical decomposition may have produced the compounds in question, recent mummies of drug users were mistakenly evaluated, that no similar cases are known of such compounds in long-dead bodies, and especially that pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages are highly speculative.

 

  • Analysis of an Egyptian mummy resin by mass spectrometry by Mark L. Proefke and Kenneth L. Rinehart (Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, July 1992)

Archaeologists  have  long  found  themselves faced  with  the  difficult  problem  of  identifying unknown  materials  in  organic  remains.  Of all the  organic  remains  studied,  resins  are  among  the most  common.  Resins  have  been  used  throughout antiquity  as  coatings,  as  in  jars  and  vessels,  and  as adhesives,  as  in  Egyptian  mummy  wrappings.

 

 

 

Forensic Facial Reconstruction

A process originally developed to assist in criminal investigations to help identify skeletal remains, these procedures have been adapted to put a recognizable face on ancient mummies

Early facial reconstructions involved putting clay or wax on a cast of the skull, but were limited to skulls where mummified tissue and wrappings were not an impediment

More recently, CT scans have been used to create detailed polystyrene replicas of skulls without the tissue and wrappings

Even more recently, computerized 3D modeling is revolutionizing how forensic facial reconstructions are done

One problem is that there will always be a certain degree of subjectivity in these recreations, which has caused some to question how reliable these reconstructions are, but on the other hand, criminal “cold cases” have been closed based on reconstructions of the more recently deceased, using the same methods and instruments

 

The reconstruction process began with a CT scan, which provided digital information used to develop a skull model. Then he employed rapid prototyping, technology that automatically constructs physical models from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) data, which is printed similar to a sculpture of itself. Elias reproduced her skull through 3D printing and sent a copy of the data set to the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg that created an actual model of Nefrina’s skull.

 

CT images have helped two individuals–each working separately with 3-D STL (stereolithography) images of Meresamun’s skull produced from the scans, but using different techniques–reconstruct Meresamun’s face. Michael Brassell is a Baltimore-based forensic artist for…the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System…Josh Harker, a forensic artist who lives in Chicago and was originally trained as a sculptor, worked digitally, leveraging the latest software and imaging technology.

 

The world’s most famous pharaoh has a brand-new look, thanks to forensic techniques that wouldn’t be out of place on a CSI TV crime drama. Scientists have created the first ever bust of the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun based on 3-D CT scans of his 3,300-year-old mummy.

 

Several years ago the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS) and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) cooperated in a unique effort to study an intact 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy using medical imaging techniques. High resolution computed tomography (CT) scans were acquired through the entire length of the mummy enabling a detailed and non-invasive view inside the wrappings. The CT images effectively create a three-dimensional digital database of the anatomy and structure of the specimen which provided a basis for computer renderings that are currently on display at the DMNS.

 

Facial reconstruction of mummies and corpses in general is important in anthropological, medical, and forensic studies. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the role of MDCT examination for 3D facial reconstruction and report the results of multidisciplinary work performed by radiologists, anthropologists, and forensic police in reconstructing the possible physiognomy of an ancient Egyptian mummy.

 

 

 

For more general discussion of mummy forensics, the following sites and articles come highly recommended.

 

The study of mummified human bodies gives us an insight to the Ancient Egypt way of life, to their lifestyle, health and funerary practices. This reduces the bias caused by the tentative interpretation of their artistic or written testimonies. The Egyptian word for mummy was sah, that means “eternal image” or “noble image”.

 

For nearly three decades, Rosalie David has directed the mummy research project at the Manchester Museum at Britain’s Manchester University, home of one of Europe’s finest Egyptian antiquities collections and one of the oldest research institutions in Egyptology. ARCHAEOLOGY spoke to David about her work with the Manchester Mummy Research Project and her latest book Conversations With Mummies, published this past October by William Morrow.

 

In order to study a mummy, scientists perform a number of procedures, similar in some ways to those used by a medical examiner who conducts an autopsy.

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

 

 

 

]]> http://emhotep.net/2011/12/26/mummies/introduction-to-mummy-forensics-terms-concepts-and-resources/feed/ 4 Medicine and Mysteries: Case Studies in Mummy Forensics http://emhotep.net/2011/10/16/mummies/medicine-and-mysteries-case-studies-in-mummy-forensics/ http://emhotep.net/2011/10/16/mummies/medicine-and-mysteries-case-studies-in-mummy-forensics/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:16:26 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=6361 Medicine and Mysteries is a sneak preview of the much larger mummies section coming to Em Hotep.  The format of the mummies section will be to present introductory summaries of relevant topics followed by video clips, followed by links to primary and secondary resources.

In this installment:  The search for Nefertiti, mummies and heart disease, was Tut murdered, mummies and dental care, ancient brain surgery, tracking Lady Tahat and sexing Lady Hor..  Much more..

 

The Search for Nefertiti

Nefertiti has been the subject of controversy ever since the New Kingdom Period, and as befits an arch-diva, she remains the source of heated contention today.  Did she reign for a season as the shadowy Pharaoh Smenkhkare following Akhenaten’s death?  Should her famous bust be returned to Egypt?  Ask these questions in the right crowd and prepare for fisticuffs!  Well, maybe it isn’t that bad, but one subject that did draw some heat for a while was whether or not the anonymous mummy known only as KV35YL—the Younger Lady—could be the remains of Nefertiti.

Tomb KV35—the tomb of Amenhotep II—was discovered in 1898.  The Eighteenth Dynasty tomb had been used in later years as a repository for royal mummies that had been relocated due to the looting of their own tombs.  Along with an impressive list of fellow Eighteenth Dynasty royals, tucked away in a side chamber were two unidentified female mummies, dubbed the Elder Lady (KV35EL) and Younger Lady (KV35YL).  Rumors almost immediately began circulating that one of the two must be Nefertiti.

KV35YL - the "Younger Lady"

KV35YL - the "Younger Lady"

The most popular claims were based on unaided forensic observations (just using your eyes and expertise).  Her head still bears the impression of a headband, which is consistent with the style of headdress worn by Nefertiti and other Eighteenth Dynasty royal women.  Her double-pierced ears are likewise a sign of royalty.  Even more intriguing is a broken-off arm nearby, attributed to KV35YL, which was preserved in a clutching position, as if she held a scepter of office when embalmed.

All of these observations, despite being circumstantial, are valid methods in mummy forensics.  It would certainly seem that the tragically damaged mummy of KV35 Younger Lady was a royal princess, possibly a King’s Great Wife, but can we say she was Nefertiti?  Follow the story and see where more advanced mummy forensics takes us. 

 

Searching for Nefertiti—Mummies in KV35 are CT scanned to see if one is Nefertiti (no date).

 

 

Tracking Nefertiti by Maryalice Yekutchik (Discovery Channel)

Having recently accumulated firsthand scientific data to add to the corroborative evidence that she painstakingly mounted over the years, Joann Fletcher has broken her cryptic silence. She declares that the unwrapped, shaven-headed mummy in KV35 is indeed most likely to be Nefertiti, the stunningly beautiful and powerful 3,400-year-old royal who likely reigned as pharaoh after serving as queen, and whose death and final resting place were ages-old mysteries.

 

Where’s Nefertiti?  By Mark Rose (Archaeology, September 16, 2004)

Mark Rose critiques Joann Fletcher’s work, and resultant book, regarding her search for Nefertiti and conclusion that she is one of the mummies from KV35.

 

Nefertiti—Will the Real Mummy Please Stand Up? By James M. Deem (Mummy Tombs)

Could the missing mummy of Nefertiti actually have been discovered a century ago and simply misidentified? A team of British researchers led by Egyptologist Joanne Fletcher conducted a 12-year search for the mummy. In 2003, they claimed that they had identified the missing Queen’s mummy as one discovered in a cache of mummies uncovered in 1898. Case closed? Not quite.

 

Press Release:  CT Scans of Egyptian Mummies from the Valley of the Kings

One of the most intriguing mummies from the Valley of Kings is the “Younger Lady” from KV35. She has recently, and unconvincingly, been identified as Akhenaten’s chief queen Nefertiti, renowned as one of the great beauties of the ancient world. Traditional scholarship has already successfully debunked this speculative assumption; the latest CT-scan confirms that this identification is indeed highly unlikely.

 

 

Mummies and Heart Disease—Evidence of a “Modern” Affliction

Did the ancient Egyptians suffer from hardening of the arteries?  Mummy forensics says the prognosis is critical—heart disease was fairly common, at least among royalty.  But this result came as a surprise to cardiologists, and led to a reexamination of their assumptions about what causes this not-so-modern killer.

Dr. Greg Thomas, Clinical Professor of Cardiology at the University of California, Irvine, started with a problematic observation about what we thought we knew about heart disease.  Conventional wisdom said that heart disease was a modern affliction caused by a lifestyle of bad habits, a high-fat diet, and a sedentary lifestyle.  And yet, in his own practice Dr. Thomas knew of people who led healthy lifestyles and yet developed heart disease nonetheless. 

Dr. Thomas wondered if another variable was causing the problem, unrelated to lifestyle.   He decided that one way to find out was to study a group of subjects who didn’t smoke, avoided fast food, and lived active lifestyles, or at least they did thousands of years ago—ancient Egyptian mummies.  Dr. Thomas’ patients who developed heart disease despite healthy habits suggested that lifestyle was not the only, or even a necessary, cause of heart disease.  If ancient Egyptians, who had none of our modern risk factors, also suffered from heart disease, then this would be further evidence that something besides the modern lifestyle was at work.

The Horus Study Group was thus formed to seek answers to these questions.  An international team of heart specialists and Egyptologists, the Horus Study Group’s goal was to conduct CT scans on 20 royal mummies from the Egyptian Museum at Cairo, looking for signs of heart disease.  The cardiologists were skeptical.  They did not expect to find evidence of arteriosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries associated with modern heart disease. 

At first, the CT scans seemed to confirm their suspicions.  Initial analysis of the results failed to turn up the tell-tale calcium deposits that indicate arteriosclerosis.  But as they had more time to delve into the results, the Horus Group researchers began to see patterns emerge that were missed on the first sweep.  Not only did many of the mummies have atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries exacerbated by plaque buildup), in some instances the condition was advanced. 

In this study, mummy forensics taught us something about a condition that we considered a modern affliction.  We found that not only is heart disease as old as civilization itself, we learned that while lifestyle might contribute to, or even cause heart disease, something else (such as genetics) is involved. 

Of course, the mummies in this study group came from a privileged class, where lifestyle factors such as a high-fat diet and a less physically active regimen, cannot be ruled out as contributing factors.  While the Horus Study opened new ways of looking at what turns out to be an old disease, further work is required for a more solid conclusion.

 

Egyptian Mummies Unwrap Secrets of Medical Mystery—The Horus Study Group is an international team of Cardiologists and Egyptologists who are determined to learn more about modern medicine by unwrapping secrets found in Egyptian mummies.  This clip is an introduction to their work.  (March 30, 2011).

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Heart Disease Found in Egyptian Mummies—It turns out heart disease has been a problem for thousands of years. Recently researchers took a closer look at a 3,500-year-old mummy and found out this Egyptian princess along with more than a dozen other mummies suffered from a buildup of plaque in the arteries (April 11, 2009).

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Heart Disease Found in Egyptian Mummies by staff (Science Daily, November 17, 2009)

Hardening of the arteries has been detected in Egyptian mummies, some as old as 3,500 years, suggesting that the factors causing heart attack and stroke are not only modern ones; they afflicted ancient people, too.

 

Mummy Scans Show Heart Disease was Rampant by Laura Sanders (Wired/Science News, November 18, 2009)

Among 22 mummies who received full-body computed tomography scans, 16 had hearts or arteries preserved enough to study. Of those, nine had evidence of blockage from atherosclerosis.

 

The Mummy Study Returns by Tom Vasich (University of California, Irvine/University Communications, April, 2011)

While the American and Egyptian researchers first identified atherosclerosis in a smaller 2009 mummy study, this effort involved whole-body CT scans on 52 mummies housed in Cairo’s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. Of the 44 with identifiable arteries or hearts, 45 percent had calcifications either in the wall of an artery or along the course of an artery highly suggestive of atherosclerosis.

 

Egyptian Mummy’s Curse:  Oldest Heart Disease Case by Stephanie Pappas (Live Science, May 17, 2011)

An ancient Egyptian princess would have needed bypass surgery if she’d lived today, according to researchers who examined the mummy and found blocked arteries in her heart in what’s now the oldest case of human heart disease.

 

Egyptian Princess Mummy Had Oldest Known Heart Disease by James Owen (National Geographic News, April 15, 2011)

An ancient Egyptian princess might have been able to postpone her mummification if she had cut the calories and exercised more, medical experts say.  Known as Ahmose Meryet Amon, the princess lived some 3,500 years ago and died in her 40s.

 

Egyptian Princess Needed Bypass Surgery, Mummy Study Shows by staff (History in the Headlines/History Channel, May 18, 2011)

The daughter of Pharaoh Seqenenre Tao II and the brother of Pharaoh Kamose, the Egyptian princess Ahmose-Meryet-Amun lived in Thebes—now Luxor—between 1540 and 1550 B.C. When she died in her 40s, the royal mummy-to-be may have been suffering from heart disease so severe that today’s doctors would have performed bypass surgery. Her mummy was examined during a larger study that shed new light on the history of the heart condition known as atherosclerosis, suggesting that the disease may have been around much longer than previously thought.

 

 

Was King Tut Murdered?

Poor Tut inherited a mess.  His father, Akhenaten, had turned Egyptian political and religious life on its head, establishing the reclusive and elitist New World Order at Amarna.  Now, with the collapse of the Amarna court and the rush to restore the old government and religious institutions, Tut seems to have been wedged into a power vacuum as little more than a placeholder. 

Tutankhamun was surrounded by envious enemies and potential plotters from the outset.  Indeed, his two closest confidants, Ay and Horemheb, were each waiting for their own turn on the throne.  To the aging vizier Ay, the nine-year-old king was a serious long-term cramp in his personal ambitions.  Horemheb, commander of Egypt’s armies and Tut’s official heir, would have likewise seen the young king as an unpredictable variable susceptible to Ay’s manipulations at court while the general was away fighting battles.

And then there were the grudges.  Tutankhamun’s father had stripped the Amun priesthood of all power and authority.  Of course, Akhenaten had inflicted this humiliation on all of Egypt’s established religions, but the Eighteenth Dynasty had a special relationship with Amun, who was seen as their deliverer from the Hyksos.  The New Kingdom arguably owed its establishment to the covenant between Ahmose I, Amun, and the institution of the religion of Amun.  Tutankhamun’s father had spat upon that arrangement. 

Of course, Tutankhamun was the public face of the reversal of Akhenaten’s policies, but for some people this may have been too little too late.  Some high-ranking government officials, powerful clergy, and wealthy nobles had lost virtually everything in the restructuring of Egyptian society based at Amarna.  Many people just a few years older than Tut had seen their families disenfranchised and their inheritances swept away, and it is not difficult to envision machinations of revenge.

So what is the evidence for regicide?  Are there alternative explanations?  If King Tut wasn’t murdered, why did he die so young?  In the case of Tutankhamun’s death, mummy forensics led to suspicion when a potentially lethal wound was discovered at the back of his head, and then eventually led to an explanation for this and other wounds, and a deeper understanding of the process of royal mummification during the New Kingdom Period.  As for what did kill him, do your own analysis of the following sources and reach your own conclusion.  There are still several to choose from!

 

Mummy Forensics:  Was Tutankhamun Murdered?—Mummy forensics turned up a possible cause of death for Tutankhamun, one which may have been purposely inflicted.  But on reexamination, the process of mummification itself may explain the hole in Tut’s head.

 

Who Killed King Tut?  (King Tut Website)

A review of the theories and possible suspects regarding Tutankhamun’s death.

 

Was Tutankhamun Murdered?  By Jenny Hill (Ancient Egypt Online)

Unfortunately, Howard Carter and his team were not particularly careful with the body of Tutankhamun when they investigated his tomb. They were more interested in removing the jewellery and amulets that were placed within the mummy wrappings than in preserving his body for posterity and in their haste they caused a huge amount of damage. Since then Tutankhamun’s mummy has been X-rayed three times (in 1968, 1978 and in 2005) but these scans have been unable to confirm beyond a reasonable doubt, the cause of his death.

 

Was Tutankhamun Murdered?  By Kate Ravilious (The Guardian, November 18, 2004)

The scan provides information about the density of all parts of the mummy, ranging from the wrappings to the skin and bone. “The scan will give a clear view of any bones that are not in the correct position and any signs of injury,” says John Taylor, an Egyptologist at the British Museum, who has carried out CAT scans on about 20 mummies.

 

King Tut Not Murdered Violently, CT Scans Show by Brian Handwerk (National Geographic News, March 8, 2005)

Detailed CT scans of King Tutankhamun’s mummy found no physical evidence of murder, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities announced today. But the scans did reveal unusual features, including a broken leg, which some experts think may have led to the boy king’s death.

 

King Tut Felled by Malaria, Bone Disease by Rosella Lorenzi (Discovery News, February 16, 2010)

King Tutankhamun was most likely the child of the “heretic” pharaoh Akhenaten..and was afflicted by several diseases, including malaria, according to a major genetic investigation into the boy king’s family.  “We have found so many curious conditions and pathologies in King Tut that it is really a problem to define what killed him,” author Carsten Pusch at the Institute of Human Genetics of Tubingen University, Germany, told Discovery News.

 

King Tut Died From Broken Leg, Not Murder, Scientists Say by Stefan Lovgren (National Geographic News, December 1, 2006)

A CT scan of King Tutankhamun’s mummy has disproved a popular theory that the Egyptian pharaoh was murdered by a blow to the head more than 3,300 years ago. Instead the most likely explanation for the boy king’s death at 19 is a thigh fracture that became infected and ultimately fatal, according to an international team of scientists.

 

A 3,000-Year-Old Mystery is finally solved:  Tutankhamun Died in a Hunting Accident by Steve Connor (The Independent, October 22, 2007)

The mystery behind the sudden death of Tutankhamun, the boy king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, may have been finally solved by scientists who believe that he fell from a fast-moving chariot while out hunting in the desert.

 

Tut:  Disease and DNA News by Mark Rose (Archaeology, February 16, 2010)

News reports are coming out today about Tut, malaria, and his family DNA. Here’s a quick take based on an early cut of the Discovery documentary and the Journal of the American Medical Association press release.

 

 

 

Lady Tahat—Musical Mummies or a Matched Wrap?

The Carlos Museum at Emory University has received a female mummy in a coffin that identifies her as Tanakhtnettahat (Lady Tahat for short), a Chantress of Amun.  But sometimes less reputable antiquities dealers stick unidentified mummies into empty coffins to increase their value.  How can we be sure the mummy is really that of Lady Tahat?

Mummy forensics draws on specialists from a wide range of disciplines.  Can a textiles specialist match the mummy to the coffin?

 

How Mummy Identification Works—Narrated by Bob Brier, this clip from the Discovery Channel describes how specialists sought to verify the identity of a mummy by matching it to its coffin.  The coffin belonged to Lady Tahat (Tanakhtnettahat), a Chantress of Amun, but does its current occupant belong there?  A scrap of wrappings, presumably from the original owner, is stuck to the bottom of the coffin.  Does it match the wrappings of the mummy currently within? (No date).

 

Coffin and Coffin Board of Tanakhtnettahat (Carlos Museum/Emory University)

This exquisite coffin belonged to the Lady Tahat, a chantress in the temple of the god Amun at Karnak. Such women were usually of high rank, as this unusually fine coffin indicates.

 

 

The Gender-Bending Case of “Lady” Hor

On June 23, 2009, a team from the Brooklyn Museum transported four mummies to North Shore University Hospital for CT scans.  Two of the mummies were from the Roman Period, including Pasebakhaemipet, a former mayor of Thebes, and two were female mummies from the Twenty-Second Dynasty, named Lady Hor and Thothirdes.  Or so the researchers thought.

The researchers were looking for the typical sorts of things CT scans tell us about mummies—verification of sex, diagnoses of any potential health issues, and a determination of the cause of death, if possible.  The study also sought to compare how the process of mummification differed from period to period and between different social classes.

Both Lady Hor and Thothirdes showed signs of receiving lower-quality mummifications than the Roman-era mummies, evidenced in part by the fact that both women were missing their hearts.  The heart is left intact with higher-quality mummifications.  But the researchers were even more surprised by what was not missing!  Both Lady Hor and Thothirdes were men, not women!

Taking the example of “Lady” Hor, this study shows the advantages of being able to look “under the wrappings” with x-rays and CT scans.  Hor, which incidentally is a masculine name—a pretty good clue!—was originally assumed to be female based on the portrait on his sarcophagus, which depicted a beardless face with delicate features.  Most Egyptian men from this period wore beards, so the researchers who made the original determination assumed that Hor was female.  It was only after looking under the wrappings with CT scanning that the truth was discovered.

 

Under the Wrappings:  The “Lady” Hor—Video from the Brooklyn Museum describing the CT scan that revealed Lady Hor to be Sir Hor instead.  We learn about the difficulties of transporting the mummies from the Brooklyn Museum to North Shore University Hospital, along with an explanation by Dr. Edward Bleiberg  of the misdiagnosis and subsequent proper diagnosis of Hor’s sex (April 1, 2010).

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Scan Reveals Mummy is Male—An Associated Press clip on the CT scan and diagnosis of Hor.  Commentary with Dr. Edward Bleiberg of the Brooklyn Museum and Dr. Jesse Chusid of North Shore University Hospital in this gender-bending discovery made possible by CT scan (June 24, 2009).

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Unwrapping Brooklyn’s Mummies: Interview with Edward Bleiberg (Archaeology, July 23, 2009)

Dr. Edward Bleiberg discusses the Brooklyn Museum’s fascinating mummies and their CT scans with Archaeology‘s Morgan Moroney. He describes what has been learned so far and the future plans for the scans, while emphasizing the importance of non-intrusive mummy unwrappings, the open exchange of scholars, excavating in museum storerooms, and public outreach.  Dr. Bleiberg also discusses the study that revealed Hor’s gender.

 

Report on the Mummies’ Trip to the Hospital by Vincent Brown (Talking Pyramids, June 24, 2009)

Vincent Brown’s live coverage via social media of the Brooklyn Museum mummies’ trip to the CT scanner at North Shore University Hospital.

 

Hey, That Mummy is a Daddy by Erik Badia (Newsday, June 23, 2009)

Egyptologists from the Brooklyn Museum and doctors from North Shore University Hospital learned Tuesday through a CT scan that a 2,500-year-old mummy previously thought to be a woman – and named Lady Hor – actually was a man. Dr. Jesse Chusid said that while the mummy’s body wrap of linen covered in plaster, called cartonage, bore the shape of a woman, the body within had the anatomy of a man. When Lady Hor’s image appeared on the screen, “we knew almost immediately that it was not a woman,” Chusid said.

 

 

Mery—Four out of Five Mummies Agree:  Brush Your Teeth

Mery (“beloved”) is the name given to an anonymous female mummy acquired by the Walters Art Museum of Baltimore in 1941.  Although her real name is unknown, we know that she lived in Thebes around 850-750 BC, came from a middle class professional family, and lived to between 50-60 years of age.  We also know that her final years would have been miserable.

Mery’s teeth were in terrible condition at the time of her death.  Of 28 remaining teeth, half were abscessed and her gums show signs of infection.  Her problem wasn’t cavities—her teeth were too worn and broken for many cavities to form.  At any given time, several of Mery’s teeth would have been throbbing with pain.  Her abscesses were so severe that her cause of death was likely septicemia, blood poisoning from her infected teeth and gums.  But her condition was not so unusual. 

At least after death, teeth are the most durable part of the human body, surviving even better than bones.  Orthodontic studies of mummies can tell us about their diet and lifestyle, and blood preserved in the pulp can provide DNA, so a good dental checkup is one of the first steps in a forensic mummy study.  But the most comprehensive study of mummy teeth came in 2009, when the Swiss Mummy Project did a massive forensic study of the dental records of over 3,000 mummies that had been analyzed over the previous 30 years. 

X-ray of Hatshepsut's teeth show Mery was not alone in her misery

The Swiss study concluded that 18% of the mummies had problems that would send even the most squeamish of us running to the dentist.  Necrotizing periodontal disease, infected cysts leaking toxins into the bloodstream, tooth and bone degeneration leaving nerves exposed, constant dull ache punctuated by moments of intense explosive pain…  Mery and the unlucky 18% experienced this and more.  But the ancient Egyptians had a diet fairly low in sugar, so why were bad teeth so prevalent?

The main culprit was the sand that surrounded them, which found its way into everything, including their food.  Bread was a staple of the ancient Egyptian diet, and bread required stone-milled flour.  When grain was tossed on the grinding stone there would inevitably be a small amount of sand that would also be pulverized into the flour.  Over the course of a lifetime this fine silicon abrasive slowly wore away at the teeth’s enamel and dentin.

Mummy forensics has also revealed signs of ancient Egyptian dentistry.  For the worst abscesses, hollow reeds would be used to lance and drain the gums.  Mery herself shows signs of an attempt to fill one of her teeth, probably with a resin mixture.  Unfortunately, Novocain was still a few millennia away.

 

The Walters Mummy Gets a Checkup—In spring 2008, the University of Maryland and the Walters Art Museum performed a CT scan on Mery, a female mummy from the museum, to conduct a “virtual autopsy” discovering more about the person’s age, possible illnesses and cause of death. She most likely died of blood poisoning from severe dental abscesses.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Mummified:  The Walters Art Museum Mummy Gets Scanned (Walters Art Museum)

The Walters Art Museum webpage concerning the “virtual autopsy” of Mery.

 

Bad Teeth Tormented Ancient Egyptians by Rosella Lorenzi (Discovery News, December 3, 2009)

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years.

 

Don’t Fear the Mummy?  Fear Her Dentist by Karl Hille (The Washington Examiner, November 27, 2008)

Judging by the state of Mery the mummy’s teeth, dental hygiene likely wasn’t a top priority 2,800 years ago, and it may even have been the cause of her demise.  Deep abscesses, broken teeth and intensely infected gums filled Mery’s mouth, leading researchers to believe she died from blood poisoning stemming from multiple infections.

 

 

 

Head Check No. 1: The Mystery of Tomb 10A

The head sat atop the sarcophagus as if to greet them—pleased to meet you, won’t you guess my name?

In 1915 a tomb was excavated by a joint Harvard University/Museum of Fine Arts Boston expedition working in the necropolis of Deir el-Bersha.  Labeled 10A, this was the tomb of Djehutynakht and his unnamed wife.  Djehutynakht was a local governor and priest from the Middle Kingdom Period, and his tomb goods, despite the shinier stuff having been looting ages ago, show that Djehutynakht and his wife enjoyed a life of refinement.  He left behind a huge cache of delicately executed funerary models, and his coffin may be one of the best examples from the Middle Kingdom Period.

The mystery revolves around a head found resting on Djehutynakht’s coffin.  Tomb robbers destroyed the mummies of Djehutynakht and his wife looking for the valuable amulets and jewelry that would have been included in their wrappings.  When the spoilers had finished, the remains of both mummies lay scattered about the tomb, with the head perched atop Djehutynakht’s coffin like a macabre signature to their deed.

So who does the head belong to?  Djehutynakht?  His wife?  Mummy forensics has its limits.

 

Can Modern Science Solve an Ancient Mystery?  The Secrets of Tomb 10A—Clip from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  Four thousand years ago, an Egyptian dignitary and his wife were interred in a tomb on top of a rugged cliff. When excavators from the MFA opened the tomb in 1915, tomb robbers had already ransacked it. Amid the disarray, a severed mummy’s head was found. Was it the governor (Djehutynakht) or his wife? What could it teach us about mummification practices?  Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital studied the mummy’s head to find clues.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

The Secrets of Tomb 10A:  The Mummy (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital examined the head using medical imaging techniques. This revealed dramatic new information about Egyptian mummification practices; for example, this mummy is one of the earliest to show evidence that embalmers removed the brain through the nose, a process that later became common.

 

Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to Unlock the Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC by staff (Artdaily.org, September 3, 2009)

This find represents the largest Middle Kingdom burial assemblage ever discovered and sheds light on the grand lifestyle enjoyed by local governor and priest Djehutynakht and his wife, Lady Djehutynakht. The conservation and reconstruction of many of the items—damaged by grave robbers in antiquity—have taken almost a century to complete. For the first time since they were placed in the tomb, the assemblage will be displayed in its entirety.

 

The Tomb of Djehutynakht by Tim Reid (The Egyptians, October 17, 2009)

I have long been fascinated by tomb 10a at el Bersha, the tombs occupant a Governor was buried in what may be the finest surviving coffin of the middle kingdom, his wife in the tomb next to him and what might be the largest collection of funerary models ever found in Egypt.

 

 

 

Head Check No. 2:  Djed-Hor and Ancient Brain Surgery

In the days leading up to the procedure, the priest Djed-Hor was much given to fits of screaming. 

Who knows how it began?  A slip down the temple stairs ending with a nasty bump to the head?  A sucker punch from a drunken parishioner?  A beer jug thrown by an angry Mrs. Djed-Hor, no longer buying the “But I’m a priest of the fertility god!” excuse for that unfamiliar perfume on his vestments?  Somehow, Djed-Hor took a vicious knock to the eye that broke bone and seems to have led to a very bad infection that spread to his brain.  The result was a pressure inside his skull that was so dreadfully painful that his fellow priests resorted to a drastic measure—brain surgery.

Djed-Hor was a priest of Min who lived at Akhmim, a prominent town sacred to that deity, around 2,600 years ago.  His mummy was found during excavations of a cemetery to the east of Akhmim which began in 1884 and continued for over a decade, uncovering thousands of mummies that have since made their way into museums all over the world.  Djed-Hor’s head found its way to the Milwaukee Public Museum where mummy forensics revealed evidence that he had possibly been subjected to trepanation, a procedure where a hole is made in the skull to relieve pressure on the brain.

So was it successful?  Dr. Carter Lupton, Head of Anthropology and History at the Milwaukee Public Museum, and Dr. Jonathan Elias, his research partner, decided to learn what they could.  When Djed-Hor’s skull was originally scanned back in 1986, researchers did not have sufficient computer power to generate the sort of 3D images and virtual fly-throughs that we have today.  As part of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, Dr.s Lupton and Elias revisited Djed-Hor’s head.  If they could find evidence that the hole had begun to heal, then the Good Priest may have lived to scream for a few weeks longer.

 

Mummy Mystery—A collaboration between the Milwaukee Public Museum and GE Healthcare to scan three mummies from Egypt and Peru reveals evidence of ancient brain surgery (April 20, 2011)

 

Museum Mummies to get CT Scan by staff (Associate Press/WTMJ)

An Egyptian man may have survived brain surgery around 600 B.C. and the Milwaukee Public Museum wants to find out for sure.  Officials there plan to do computerized tomography, or CT scans, on three mummies on Tuesday. The Egyptian man may have had a procedure called trepanation — which involves scraping or drilling into the skull to possibly relieve pressure on the brain — and survived for at least a short time.

 

Scanning Mummies:  GE Healthcare Unlocks Secrets of the Past by staff (GE Reports, April 19, 2011)

One of the Egyptian mummies, named Djed-Hor, was first scanned in 1986. Then again in 2006, another scan using better technology revealed a silver dollar-sized hole in his skull, leading the anthropologists to conclude he had undergone a primitive form of brain surgery. Now they hope 3D imaging can confirm a new theory that Djed-Hor survived the horrific procedure, and even lived for a time afterwards.

 

CT Scans Help Unravel Mummy Mystery by staff (GE Healthcare, April 20, 2011)

One of the museum’s mummies, a 2,600 year old named Djed-Hor from the Akhmim region in Egypt, appears to have had a precise section of his skull removed through trepanation – an ancient, rudimentary procedure designed to relieve pressure from the brain.

 

 

 

Incredible Journey:  Identifying of the Mummy of Ramesses I

It all started with a lost goat.

One bright day in the mid-1800’s a man named Abd el-Rassul was searching for his wayward goat near the ancient site of Deir el-Bahri, the location of Hatshepsut’s remarkable temple Djeser-Djeseru (“Holy of the Holies”), near modern-day Luxor.  Abd found his goat bleating up to him from what turned out to be the shaft of a tomb—and Abd’s meal ticket for the next few years.

This was no ordinary tomb.  Abd and his goat had stumbled upon a cache of noble and royal mummies, forty in all, dating from the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Periods.  They had been relocated to this central cache—one of two—during the Twenty-First Dynasty in an effort to restore mummies whose tombs had been robbed.  Now they were here, along with what remained of their funeral goods and treasures, before a wide-eyed Abd el-Rassul and his lucky goat.  Or at least that is the story.

This could have been a great moment for Egyptology, as it eventually would prove to be, but to Abd el-Rassul antiquities were only worth what someone was willing to pay in cash.  Calling the Egyptian government to report the discovery would pay him little, if anything.  But a treasure trove like this could be parceled out and sold on the black market as needed, which is exactly what Abd and his brothers did, at least until the authorities caught onto their game. 

Abd el-Rassul (in white on the left) with Gaston Maspero (on right, reclining) at the entrance to DB320

Abd el-Rassul (in white on the left) with Gaston Maspero (on right, reclining) at the entrance to DB320

The el-Rassul brothers had a pretty good run while it lasted, pawning small items like amulets and shabtis to collectors.  But when the tomb was fully excavated and catalogued in 1881, it seemed that some of the el-Rassuls’ scores were bigger than what could fit into a rucksack. 

Cataloging the site is standard to all archeological digs, and is of extra importance in mummy forensics because this is usually where you begin to get an idea of whose mummy you have found.  Sometimes this is as easy as reading the name on the walls, but in a situation like the cache at Deir el-Bahri (now officially called DB320, or alternately TT320), where scores of mummies have been relocated, knowing what artifacts were found in the proximity of which mummies might be the only clue to who is who.  But in DB320, the team working the site was intrigued by what mummy was not found with a particular artifact.  

When the mummies had been relocated the priests in charge made lists of who had been interred in which cache.  The list for DB320 included Pharaoh Ramesses I, and sure enough, a coffin bearing his name was found within the site.  But the coffin was empty, and none of the other mummies in the cache could be attributed to Ramesses I.  At some point between the Twenty-First Dynasty and the 1881 inventory, the mummy of Ramesses I had gone missing.  Could the Rassul brothers have actually sold the mummy of Pharaoh Ramesses I?

Enter Thomas Barnett, Niagara Falls’ answer to P. T. Barnum.  Barnett had opened a gallery of curiosities that was part museum and part carnival sideshow, the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame.  While obviously having an element of kitsch, Barnett seems to have made a serious attempt to blend local history, world culture, and shock value into something akin to an educational experience.  It was in this spirit that, between 1857 and 1861 he dispatched his son, Sidney, on three separate expeditions to Egypt to acquire Egyptian… stuff.

No Egyptian Wing is complete without a mummy, and in 1860 a member of Sidney Barnett’s party, James Douglas, acquired a mummy for the Niagara Falls Museum for a grand total of seven pounds.  Barnett’s party was known to have purchased artifacts from a dealer named Mustapha Aga Ayat, who was known to have done business with Abd el-Rassul.  The year—1860—is a good match.  When DB320 was “officially” discovered in 1881 the going story was that it had actually been discovered in the 1860’s.  Did the mummy Ayat sold to Douglas come from Abd el-Rassul?  Could it have been Ramesses I? 

Was seven pounds a king’s ransom?  Again, we turn to mummy forensics. 

First there is the simple unaided visual analysis.  Although far from scientific, anyone can see that the mummy bears a very strong resemblance to the mummies of Ramesses I’s son and grandson, Seti I and Ramesses II.  The trained eye of an Egyptologist can ascertain other details that may not be as obvious.  In the 1980’s Dr. Arne Eggebrecht noted that the mummy’s posture was appropriate for a royal man from the time of Ramesses I.  The positioning of the arms crossed over the chest, with the right hand on top, does not appear until the New Kingdom, and is exclusive to royal males.

Other signs pointed to a royal embalmment.  Although not confirmed beyond unaided observation, the mystery mummy’s fingernails appear to have been painted with henna, an indicator of high status.  The toes appear to have been individually wrapped, which also indicates a pricy mummification.  The mummy’s left hand appears to have once clutched something, such as a scepter.  The mummy was definitely looking like royalty.

The opportunity for more comprehensive forensic analysis came in 1999, when the Niagara Falls Museum permanently closed its doors and the Egyptian collection, mummy included, was acquired by Dr. Peter Lacovara for the Carlos Museum at Emory University.  Dr. Lacovara was also intrigued by the possibility that the Niagara Falls mummy could be Pharaoh Ramesses I, so he decided to take forensics to the next level.  In March, 2000, the mummy had its day with the CT scanner at Emory University Hospital.

The CT scan of the mystery mummy shows that the internal organs were expertly removed and replaced with rolls of linen. Solidified resin (see arrow) finishes the picture of an Eighteenth Dynasty royal mummification (Courtesy of RadioGraphics)

The CT scan added further weight to the theory that the mystery mummy was a New Kingdom royal male, and thus likely the missing Ramesses I.  The embalming incision (the cut from which the body’s entrails were removed) was expertly done and consistent with New Kingdom practices.  The scan also revealed that expert care was given to assuring the mummy’s heart was left in place and the brain properly removed, both indicators of high-quality mummification.  X-ray analysis of bone degeneration in the mummy’s spine suggests an age of at least 45 at the time of death. 

It seems very likely that the mystery mummy from the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame could be that of Ramesses I.  Further analysis, such as genetic testing, could close this case for good.

 

The Mummy Who Would be King: NOVA/PBS—The unusual search for Ramesses I, from the holy site of Deir el-Bahri to the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame to the Carlos Museum (January 23, 2010).

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

The Mummy Who Would Be King (Nova/PBS)

The companion website to the Nova documentary.

 

Ramesses I: The Search for the Lost Pharaoh (Michael C. Carlos Museum/Emory University)

Official website dedicated to the history of Pharaoh Ramesses I, how his mummy came to the Carlos Museum, and how he was identified.

 

The Mystery Mummy by Mark Rose (Archaeology, March/April 2003)

If this is a royal mummy, how can we identify which pharaoh it is? Scholars are debating the evidence from a close examination of the mummy and the mummification techniques used on it; from accounts of the mid-nineteenth-century antiquities trade in Luxor and the discovery of a royal mummy cache at Deir el-Bahri; and modern scientific techniques including X-ray images, CAT scans, and facial profiling.

 

U.S. Museum to Return Ramesses I Mummy to Egypt by Hillary Mayell (National Geographic News, April 30, 2003)

The royal mummy and four fragments are part of a 145-piece collection of mummies, coffins, and artifacts the Carlos museum purchased in 1999 from a tacky museum in Niagara Falls that also featured a “Freaks of Nature” exhibit.

 

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

]]> http://emhotep.net/2011/10/16/mummies/medicine-and-mysteries-case-studies-in-mummy-forensics/feed/ 2 Modern Day Mummy—The San Diego Museum of Man Takes You From the Lab to the Field http://emhotep.net/2011/07/10/mummies/modern-day-mummy%e2%80%94the-san-diego-museum-of-man-takes-you-from-the-lab-to-the-field-3/ http://emhotep.net/2011/07/10/mummies/modern-day-mummy%e2%80%94the-san-diego-museum-of-man-takes-you-from-the-lab-to-the-field-3/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:30:36 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=6193 Last week we met Mumab, the modern-day ancient Egyptian mummy, and learned a little about what he is up to now.  To recap, he is now on permanent loan to the San Diego Museum of Man and is currently serving as the centerpiece of their new exhibit, Modern Day Mummy: The Art and Science of Mummification.

Since that article ran, the Museum of Man has kindly provided Em Hotep with some photos from the exhibit, so we are returning the favor with a closer look at the exhibit itself.  We will also take an in-depth look at the story behind one of the displays—Ronald Beckett’s trip to New Guinea to help a village set up a program of better mummy maintenance.

 

Modern Day Mummy:  The Art and Science of Mummification opened at the San Diego Museum of Man on June 10, 2011, just in time for the Seventh World Congress on Mummy Studies just across town at the University of San Diego.  The two events had more in common than mummies and a chance to enjoy the Southern California weather.  Aside from promoting general awareness about the field of mummy studies, both the Congress on Mummy Studies and the Modern Day Mummy exhibit addressed the practical, ethical, and social issues that researchers often face while working in the field.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Modern Day Mummy exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man

Mummies are not always very mobile.  Even something as simple as moving a mummy from one part of a museum to another can be a logistical ballet, and conducting mummy forensics often involves transporting a mummy from a museum in one country to a medical center in another.  But what do you do when a mummy won’t budge?  What if, for practical or cultural reasons, the mummy has to remain in situ?

But before we get into these issues, let’s check back in with Mumab, the star of the show.

 

Multimodal Imaging: One Layer, Probe, and Photo at a Time

Fortunately, sometimes the mummies are willing to cooperate with researchers, and Mumab is probably the best sport of all.  One of the best tools for paleoimaging—the science of using medical and industrial imaging tools to collect images of cultural remains and artifacts—is CT scanning.  CT scanning, also called CAT scanning, is a type of x-ray imaging that takes multiple cross-sectional pictures of a body or artifact allowing it to be viewed it in layers.  CT scans are non-invasive, do not require that a mummy be unwrapped, and can even take detailed images of a mummy that is inside a sarcophagus.

Click here to view the embedded video.

CT scanning in mummy forensics (Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum)

Mumab’s display at the San Diego Museum of Man includes a full-size recreation of a CT scanner, along with interactive controls that allow visitors to get a feel for what it is like to perform their own analysis of a mummy.  One of the last things Mumab’s creators did was take a full set of CT scans of the mummy and those images have been incorporated into the interactive display to complete the experience.

The controls for the simulated CT scan are much simpler than in real life, but as visitors explore Mumab’s body layer by layer they get a pretty good sense for how CT scanning allows researchers to diagnose the person under the wrappings, how they might have lived and died, and how the process of mummification both preserved and changed the body.   The video portion of the display uses tomography—a way of using  x-ray and other types of imaging to allow you to visually “move” through a body or object—to reconstruct Mumab using his actual CT scans.

CT scanning is only one of several means of paleoimaging, and the Modern Day Mummy exhibit introduces us to the three most common types used by mummy researchers.  CT scanning falls under the category of radiography—image collection that utilizes different ways of x-raying a subject to get a comprehensive view of its internal structure.  CT scanning and conventional radiography help researchers understand what is going on “under the wraps.”   Combined with tomography software, radiographic images allow you to take a virtual tour of a mummy.

An endoscope is one of the more portable tools for mummy forensics (Courtesy Linda Bartlett)Another type of paleoimagery is endoscopy.  Endoscopy simply means to look inside of something, but more technically it refers to the use of an endoscope, a tool that allows a lens to be inserted into a body via a rigid or flexible probe.  The lens can either connect to an eyepiece, a camera, or a tomography computer.  Endoscopes are more intrusive than radiography, but they are also more portable, making them very useful in the field.     Also, whereas radiography requires tomography software to simulate a 3D view of a body, an endoscope allows you to examine the inside as it actually appears.

 

Conventional photography is still one of the most important tools in the field (Courtesy of Isawnyu)

Conventional photography is still one of the most important tools in the field (Courtesy of Isawnyu)

The third tool in the paleoimagery toolbox is simple conventional photography.  Photographs provide the most basic means of collecting visual data and cameras are generally the most portable of the three primary tools for paleoimagery.  Photography has been an element of field work practically since the invention of the camera, and is useful for everything from documenting artifacts to surveying the entire site.

The Museum of Man exhibit has plenty of conventional photography to show the role of the camera in mummy forensics, as well as the CT scan simulation for exploring Mumab in depth.  There is even an endoscope visitors can inspect.  The exhibit demonstrates that each of these tools offers a different mode of examining and imaging the mummy.  They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but when used together in a complimentary fashion they provide the most complete means of analysis.

Called multimodal imaging, this varied approach allows researchers to gain a more complete picture of what is going on inside a mummy.  Conventional photography is good for documenting the site and its contents, but it really only shows us what a mummy looks like from the outside.  X-ray and CT scanning allow us to see what is going on inside, but only in 2D.  Endoscopy allows the researcher to explore the contour of hollow sections of the mummy, but is limited to what is directly in front of the lens.  But in combination, these three tools allow a mummy to be explored in detail, inside and out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Multimodal imaging allows radiography and endoscopy to be combined into tomography software to produce a 3D fly-through of a mummy (Courtesy of Berkshire Museum)

This is all well and good, but what about those situations where you can’t deliver the mummy to the CT scanner, when practically all of the analysis has to take place in the field?  This brings us to another display in the Modern Day Mummy exhibit and introduces us to the work of Drs. Ronald Beckett and Gerald Conlogue, the men who literally wrote the book on paleoimaging.

 

Moimango—Another Modern Ancient Mummy

If Mumab shows us what mummy forensics looks like in the lab, then the display labeled “A Mummy Whispers” takes us about as far out in the field as you can get, all the way to the little village of Koke in the region of Papua, New Guinea.  The scene is a life-sized diorama that shows a mostly skeletal mummy sitting in a chair.  On one side of the mummy a modern-looking man is preparing to insert an endoscope, while on the other side a not-so-modern-looking man is examining the mummy using more conventional means—his eyes.

The scene actually recreates an important moment in mummy forensics history.  The fellow on the right is Dr. Ronald Beckett, who could rightly be called one of the founders of the field of paleoimagery.  The fellow on the left is Gemtasu, the chief of the village of Koke.  The fellow in the center is Moimango, Gemtasu’s father.  Aside from showing how researchers have developed strategies for conducting sophisticated mummy forensics in the field, this diorama represents a wonderful story that touches on all aspects of the Modern Day Mummy exhibit:  the ethical, the practical, and the social.

 

Ron Beckett, Jerry Conlogue, and the Emerging Field of Paleoimagery

Dr. Ronald Beckett

Dr. Ronald Beckett

Ron Beckett began his professional life in 1977 as a respiratory therapist and supervisor at Tucson General Hospital.  It was during this time that he began teaching endoscopy at Pima Community College, and his practical experience with respiratory/pulmonary specialists led to him making his own contributions and refinements to endoscopic procedures. In 1983 he moved to Rhode Island where he started the Respiratory Care program at the Community College of Rhode Island.

Dr. Jerry Conlogue

Dr. Jerry Conlogue

Beckett continued to explore new ways of applying endoscopy to pulmonary research and applications, and served as the Chairman of the Department of Cardiopulmonary Sciences and Diagnostic Imaging for 23 years at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT. In the mid-90’s Dr. Beckett developed an interest in mummy research.  With the encouragement of Dr. Jerry Conlogue, a colleague who shared his interest in mummies, Dr. Beckett realized that endoscopy could provide a new dimension to analyzing mummies that radiographic imagery alone could not offer.

Drs. Beckett and Conlogue perfected their methods with animal mummies such as this cat at the Yale Peabody Museum

Drs. Beckett and Conlogue perfected their methods with animal mummies like this cat

In 1996 Beckett and Conlogue began testing methods of radiographic and endoscopic imaging on mummified remains, which led to an opportunity to put their techniques to work analyzing Peruvian mummies at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia.  Back in Connecticut they continued their work with human and animal mummies at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and became regular presenters at the annual meetings of the Paleopathology Association.  It was also at this time that Beckett and Conlogue began to define the methodology of multimodal imagery.

They continued to refine their methods of data collection using the various tools of radiography, magnetic resonance, and endoscopy, and laid the foundations for what would culminate in their 2009 book, Paleoimaging:  Field Applications for Cultural Remains and Artifacts.  But as paleoimaging continued to develop as a discipline, Dr. Beckett realized that there was an increasing need for ways of conducting research in the field rather than in the lab, so he and Dr. Conlogue began looking for ways to take the lab to the mummies.

It seems they found their niche, and soon Drs. Beckett and Conlogue were in high demand worldwide.  When mummy paleoimaging required a home visit, Beckett and Conlogue were the doctors-on-call.  But in 2008, Ron Beckett received his most unusual invitation ever.

 

Mummy Maintenance… 1,000 Feet Up, On a Cliff, In the Rainforest

The Anga are a collection of people in New Guinea who are divided into tribes according to dialect, with these tribes being further subdivided into local clans.  Some of these clans practice their own unique form of mummification, and it was from the leader of one of these clans that Dr. Beckett received his strange invitation.  Gemtasu, an Angan leader at the village of Koke, needed help developing new ways of preserving and maintaining the village mummies.

Mummies watching over the village from 1,000 feet up (Courtesy Healing Seekers)

Mummies watching over the village from 1,000 feet up (Courtesy Healing Seekers)

The Koke mummies, unlike those of Egypt, are not placed in a tomb or otherwise removed from the realm of the living.  To the contrary, they are placed 1,000 feet up in chairs on a cliff overlooking the village.  On certain occasions, the mummies are brought down from the cliff to participate in village life.  The people of Koke do not have a concept of an afterlife that is separate from the natural world, and their spirits are believed to wander the forest and interact with the living through their preserved bodies.

Gemtasu was concerned about the condition of one mummy in particular, that of his father, Moimango.  Like his father, Gemtasu planned to be mummified after death, so he wanted to leave a legacy of better mummy maintenance for his descendents.  Gemtasu learned about Dr. Beckett and his work through their mutual friend, the photographer Ulla Lohmann, and invited him to come to Koke to see what could be done to repair and better protect their mummies.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ronald Beckett and Andrew Nelson describe their project with the Koke villagers

For Ron Beckett, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.  Not only would he be able to try new means of mummy forensics and in-the-field paleoimaging, he would have the chance to study mummies in a cultural context where the living directly interacted with their preserved dead.

The fascinating thing about the Anga mummies, Beckett said, was that they were still a part of village life, not ancient artifacts as they are in Egypt. In fact, “We were actually introduced to the mummies as if they were living people.” (Source:  New Haven Register:  Village mummy ritual withstands test of time)

But it would also involve new challenges.  Not only would there be the obvious cultural considerations, Beckett would also be facing new environmental conditions.  New Guinea is extremely humid, the exact opposite of traditional mummy territory.  How did they create these mummies in such a moist climate?  And the idea of leaving the mummies exposed to the elements a thousand feet up on a cliff was just asking for trouble.  Everything seemed counterintuitive to what he knew about making and preserving mummies.

Another challenge was sustainability.  The people of Koke would not have access to the sorts of materials a museum curator might use to restore a mummy, so Dr. Beckett would have to learn how to make use of the materials the Angan people could easily obtain and then train them in how to use these resources with their mummies.  Success meant learning three things about the mummies:  how they were made, how the people of Koke interacted with them, and how to restore and maintain them using indigenous materials.

 

Smoked Body

One of the first questions Dr. Beckett confronted was how mummification occurred in a place as humid as New Guinea.  Natural mummification was pretty much out of the question.  Anything that dies in the rainforest is reclaimed by nature pretty quickly through scavenging and decay.  But even artificial mummification would pose challenges.  Preserving a body is a race with the devil to remove all the moisture before decomposition can take hold, and rainforests are not known for their aridity.  But the Anga found a way.

A smoked body mummy. The reddish tint comes from a layer of ochre clay which is added in the final stages (Courtesy of Ulla Lohmann / National Geographic)

A smoked body mummy (Courtesy of Ulla Lohmann / National Geographic)

The Anga call their mummification technique smoked body, pretty much for the same reason we call smoked turkey “smoked turkey.”  Food meats are smoked by placing them in a confined space with a wood-burning fire.  The fire dehydrates the meat and the smoke creates a high-acid environment that discourages bacteria.

The ancient Egyptians packed bodies in natron for similar reasons—to draw out moisture and change the chemistry of the body in a way that prevented bacterial spoilage, except natron lowers acidity rather than raises it.  Either way, what works for pork and pastrami works for people.

You may recall from the previous article about Mumab, the modern ancient mummy, that the Egyptians embalmed their mummies in a special tent called the ibu tent.  Dr. Beckett learned that the Angan people have a special hut that serves the same purpose—a safe, controlled environment for dehydrating the body.  But the similarities pretty much end there.

The mummification hut works like a smokehouse and on the same principles.  A fire within an enclosed environment desiccates the body and keeps the humidity moving outward.  The smoke serves a dual purpose.  As mentioned above, it raises the acidity level on and around the body, but it also keeps insects out of the hut, and insects serve an important role in breaking down dead organic material.  To help speed the dehydrating process, the body is punctured with bamboo knives and the deceased’s relatives massage the tissues around these wounds, literally “milking” the bodily fluids out.

Also unlike the Egyptians, the Angan people do not remove the entrails from the torso.  These soft and wet organs are the first to begin decomposing, so the Angans developed another means of draining the body which Dr. Beckett delicately refers to as an anal spigot.  A bamboo tube is inserted into the sphincter to allow the fluids to evacuate.  The procedure is very effective, allowing the Angans to mummify their deceased with their organs intact.

An Angan mummy in situ (Courtesy Healing Seekers)

A mummy in situ (Courtesy Healing Seekers)

The bodies are mummified in an upright sitting position in the chair they will eventually occupy on the cliff face.  Once they are fully dried out they are covered with a layer of ochre, clay that is high in mineral oxides, giving them a reddish color.

The ochre serves a ceremonial purpose, but also helps protect and preserve the mummy.  The entire process takes about 30 days.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A trip up the cliff to visit the Koke mummies (courtesy of Healing Seekers)

The next question Dr. Beckett had to address was how the villagers interacted with the mummies.  He knew that sitting on the cliff face, exposed to the wind and sun, had to take its toll.  But what other experiences did the mummies have to endure?  Periodically they were brought down from the cliff to the village, and that had to involve some risk.  But when Dr. Beckett saw the way Gemtasu acted with his father’s mummy he knew that the people of Koke were serious about finding new ways to care for their preserved dead.

Gemtasu and Moimango after repairs (Courtesy Ulla Lohmann / National Geographic)

Gemtasu and Moimango after repairs (Courtesy Ulla Lohmann / National Geographic)

It wasn’t so much the reverence with which the mummies were treated—that was to be expected.  The mummies were their way of communing with their dead ancestors, so they would obviously be treated with care.

It was more the way Gemtasu seemed to combine his veneration with a pragmatic concern for the condition of the mummy.  Andrew Nelson, an anthropologist who accompanied Beckett on the project, observed of Gemtasu:  “It’s clear he was connecting with his father at some level and he was clearly inspecting the mummy to see if there was any deterioration since the last time” (Source).

The Koke villagers were not just interested in repairing and maintaining their mummies, they wanted to continue the tradition of mummification.  But they were also open to innovation, which was why Ron Beckett had been invited to their village in the first place.  He was there on a mission of mutual gain and mutual respect.  He wanted to learn from the Angan people, and they wanted to learn from him as well.  It was an ideal situation for success, despite the environmental challenges.

The Koke villagers wanted a better way of repairing and maintaining their mummified ancestors (Courtesy Ulla Lohmann / National Geographic)

The Koke villagers wanted a better way of repairing and maintaining their mummies (Courtesy Ulla Lohmann / National Geographic)

All that remained was to find ways to repair and maintain the mummies that were sustainable.  By working with the Angan people, obviously the best experts regarding their own resources, Dr. Beckett found local substitutes for the materials he used to restore mummies back home.  He learned, for example, that a resin used to secure arrowheads also made excellent glue for repairing the mummies, and in addition, was a natural insect repellant.

Ron Beckett ended up making two trips to Koke.  He was successful in helping Gemtasu repair his father’s mummy, as well as helping the people of his village learn new ways of maintaining their dead ancestors.  For his part, Dr. Beckett not only learned about Angan customs and practices regarding mummification, he was able to test and refine new ways of conducting forensics and paleoimaging in the field.  But of equal importance, he showed that by working with the local people in a respectful way and treating their deceased with dignity, it was possible to have a mutually beneficial relationship.

 

Meanwhile, Back in San Diego

A sarcophagus from the Museum of Man collection (Courtesy Lindsay Holmwood)

A sarcophagus from the Museum of Man collection (Courtesy Lindsay Holmwood)

Mumab and Moimango, for all their differences, still have one thing in common:  they are both examples of artificial mummification.  Recall from the Mumab article that there are two types of mummification:  natural, which occurs without any sort of intervention, thanks to environmental conditions, and artificial, which is any sort of mummification that requires human agency to ensure preservation.  Both Mumab and Moimango are mummies that were created by design, and pretty recent ones at that.  Mumab is about sixteen years old, Moimango is about fifty.

One of the older stars of the show is a natural Peruvian mummy, aged at around 550 years.  This particular mummy owes its preservation to the hot and dry climate of Peru.  Natural mummies of this sort can be found from Southern California to Central America, in the Saharan sands of Egypt, and pretty much any sort of desert climate where a body can be desiccated before bacteria and insects can begin their destructive work.

But not all natural mummies come from hot and dry places.  Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy discovered in the Ötzal Alps on the border between Austria and Italy, was preserved by being frozen in a glacier.  The Haraldskær Woman, an Iron Age mummy found in a bog in Denmark, is an example of a “bog body”—a natural mummy preserved by perpetual cold, lack of oxygen, and immersion in highly acidic water.  The key ingredients to a natural mummification are a very hot and dry or very cold environment, absence of air circulation, and favorable soil conditions that are absorbent and/or hostile to bacteria.

Shrunken heads from the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador--definitely an example of artificial mummification! (Courtesy San Diego Museum of Man)

Shrunken heads from Ecuador--definitely an example of artificial mummification! (Courtesy San Diego Museum of Man)

There are several more mummies to peruse at the Modern Day Mummy exhibit, including a mummified infant, a mummified hawk, and (as promised!) three shrunken heads made by the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador.

Other displays feature Egyptian tomb artifacts such as ushabtis, info graphics on topics such as honoring the dead and field forensics, and several other hands-on interactive displays.

Besides the CT scan and endoscope, visitors can use magnifying glasses to scrutinize the sorts of bugs and bacteria that help promote decomposition at a kiosk about the process of decay.  Another interesting display allows visitors to actually smell some of the leftover materials from Mumab’s mummification, including natron, frankincense, and palm, lotus and cedar oils.  Then entire exhibit is sensibly arranged, with attractive and informative signage, and works equally well whether you are “following the story” or just jumping around to what interests you.

A visit to the Modern Day Mummy:  The Art & Science of Mummification exhibit will give you a pretty good idea of how mummy researchers collect data from mummies and what sorts of things mummies can teach us about the daily lives of the people they represent—how they lived, what they ate, how they passed their time, and how they died.  You will learn how mummies were made, both intentionally and accidentally, and how researchers are improving the ways they deal with mummies and the people who love them.

There is also a lecture series that accompanies the exhibit.  For dates and topics please visit the official Modern Day Mummy website at the San Diego Museum of Man.

Modern Day Mummy will be on display through March 4, 2012.

Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.  Tickets are $12.50 for adults, $7.50 for youth (ages 13-17) and seniors (62+) and $5 for children ages 3 to 12.

The museum is at 1350 El Prado in Balboa Park. Visit museumofman.org or call 619-239-2001.

 

Bonus Videos

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

An animation of a CT scan from the Science Museum of Minnesota

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

CT scan of Shem-en-Min, a 2,200-year-old mummy (Courtesy of HV Media Group)

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Amazing tomographic video of the CT scan of a crocodile mummy

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

CT scanning of a 2,500-year-old mummy named Irethorrou (Courtesy of Stanford Medicine)

 

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

The photographs “mdm00” through “mdm09” are provided courtesy of the San Diego Museum of Man, copyright 2011, all rights reserved.  The photograph Endoscope by Linda Bartlett is in the public domain.  The photographs sarcophagus at SDMoM by Lindsay Holmwood, Museum of Man by Dave Reichert and photographing a mummy in situ by isawnyu are used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.0 License and may be reused under the same provisions.   The following photos, images, and video clips are using in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of copyright law and are reproduced for the sole purpose of promoting discussion and are not used in any way that would inhibit the sale or trade of the originals:  “cat mummy”, from the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, all rights reserved; “Ronald Beckett” and “Jerry Conlogue” from Quinnipiac University, all rights reserved; the stills “Smoked mummy 2” and “mummies on a cliff” from the video “Healing Seekers – PNG People of the Mummies” from Healing Seekers, all rights reserved; “Smoked body mummy”, “Gemtasu and Moimango”, and “Mummy repairs” by Ulla Lohmann from  the National Geographic production “National Geographic Explorer:  Lost Mummies of New Guinea”, all rights reserved.

]]> http://emhotep.net/2011/07/10/mummies/modern-day-mummy%e2%80%94the-san-diego-museum-of-man-takes-you-from-the-lab-to-the-field-3/feed/ 0 Mumab: A Modern Day Ancient Egyptian Mummy and What He Has Taught Us So Far http://emhotep.net/2011/06/28/egypt-in-the-news/mumab-a-modern-day-ancient-egyptian-mummy-and-what-he-has-taught-us-so-far/ http://emhotep.net/2011/06/28/egypt-in-the-news/mumab-a-modern-day-ancient-egyptian-mummy-and-what-he-has-taught-us-so-far/#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:05:44 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=5896 Whether it was officially declared or not, this June has certainly been the Month of the Mummy.  June 10 saw the opening of the Modern Day Mummy: The Art and Science of Mummification exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man, and then the incredible Mummies of the World exhibit opened at the Franklin Institute on June 18.  All that was needed for a perfect Month of the Mummy was an American convention of the World Mummy Congress, and that was delivered on June 12 – 16 in San Diego.

It is probably not a coincidence that the Seventh World Mummy Congress was convened at the University of San Diego, a short trip across town from the San Diego Museum of Man, where Mumab had just settled into his new home.  Mumab—short for Mummy of University of Maryland at Baltimore—has the distinction of being the first modern ancient mummy.  The inspiration for his creation came in the mid 90’s when mummy expert Dr. Bob Brier realized that the only way to know how ancient Egyptian mummies were made would be to mummify a human cadaver using the same tools and methods the Egyptians used.  And so he did.

In this article Em Hotep will look at the history of Mumab—how he was made, what was learned from him, and what he is up to now.

Anubis overseeing a mummificationWhen you think of royal Egyptian mummies, the name Mumab probably does not come to mind.  And to be certain, Mumab did not begin as royalty, at least as far as we know.  When he first appears in our story he is simply the cadaver of a Baltimore man in his 70’s who had donated his body to science before passing away.  When he filled out his donor card he was probably unaware that he would ultimately become the first human being to receive a royal Egyptian mummification in over 2,000 years and the benchmark against which actual royal mummies would be compared.

Bob Brier (Courtesy of University of Richmond)

Bob Brier (Courtesy of University of Richmond)

Mumab could not have been in better hands for his transformation.  Dr. Bob Brier, Senior Research Fellow at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University, has an extensive history with mummies and the mummification process.  In addition to his work with ancient Egyptian mummies such as Tutankhamun and Ramesses II, Dr. Brier has conducted research on more recent quasi-royal mummies like Vladimir Lenin and Eva Perón.  If you want to make a modern mummy using ancient Egyptian methods, Dr. Brier is your best choice.

Dr. Brier’s research kept forcing him to confront the same problem—that the primary and secondary sources on how the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead were incomplete, and in some cases, probably inaccurate.  Certain questions were simply not addressed, and certain answers seemed off the mark.  What really happens when you try to remove a human brain via the nostrils using a long metal hook?  As with any subject in science, the only real way to have a better understanding of how mummies were made was to test hypotheses and attempt to reproduce results.

Ronn Wade (Courtesy of CNN/Turner Broadcasting)

Ronn Wade (Courtesy of CNN/Turner Broadcasting)

Mumab came into being during the early summer months of 1994 to do just that.  Dr. Brier partnered with Dr. Ronn Wade, Director of the Maryland State Anatomy Board and Director of the Anatomical Services Division at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and a huge supporting team of artists, scientists, and technicians, to faithfully reproduce an Egyptian mummification.  After replicating scores of ancient mortuary tools using authentic materials and designs, and gathering embalming materials from the same sources the ancients would have used, they were ready to begin.

In order to fully appreciate Mumab’s contribution to our knowledge of ancient Egyptian mummification we should first take a look at what we knew beforehand and how Dr. Brier’s work changed that.

 

Tombs and Mummies:  If you have one, you’ll want the other

Life goes on in the afterlife—wall painting from the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Metchetchi (Photo by Keith Payne)

Life goes on in the afterlife—wall painting from the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Metchetchi (Photo by Keith Payne)

Ancient Egyptians were incredible tomb builders.  From the simple shaft tombs to the Great Pyramid, when it came to the afterlife the Egyptians liked to be well prepared.  This might lead to the incorrect assumption that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death, but that was simply not the case.  They were obsessed with life, and they did not want it to end.  The Egyptian idea of the afterlife was a lot like mortal life, only better.  If you can imagine getting to retire while still in your prime, and never getting older, then you will have a pretty good idea of what the ancient Egyptians had in mind.

However, as is always the case with the hereafter, there were conditions attached.  Along with all of the normal expectations about living a just life, the ancient Egyptians believed that the preservation of the body was absolutely essential for passage into the afterlife.  Over time this led to the development of one of the most complex and ritualized religious systems in history, one which has left us some of the most beautiful sacred monuments and iconography ever created.  But even from the earliest days of predynastic Egypt, mummification was an established part of Egyptian religion.

 

 

Egyptian mummification was the process of preserving a body by completely drying it out before decomposition had a chance to take root.  Decomposition is caused by bacteria, and bacteria require moisture to thrive.  If you remove all of the moisture from a body before the bacteria has a chance to become established then you can prevent decomposition.  This is the same reason why salted meats and dried fruits and vegetables were so important prior to refrigeration—dehydration prevented spoilage and increased shelf life.  Drying out a human body can increase its shelf life by thousands of years.

Ginger—one of the more famous examples of a predynastic natural mummy

Ginger—one of the more famous examples of a predynastic natural mummy

Dr. Brier believes that this connection between preservation of the body and the afterlife developed pretty early in Egyptian history, when the Egyptians realized that a body buried in the hot desert sands did not decay, and that it retained much of its physical characteristics.  Unlike a decayed body, a mummified body could be recognized as the person it once was, which suggested that something of the individual person could survive physical death.  This imperishability of the body therefore became associated with the perpetuation of the human spirit after death.

Recreation of a pre-dynastic sand burial in the Royal Ontario Museum (Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts)

Recreation of a pre-dynastic sand burial in the Royal Ontario Museum (Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts)

But there was a problem with sand burials.  While it’s true that the dehydrating effects of being buried in hot sand led to really effective mummifications, the body was also vulnerable to exposure.  Winds could uncover the mummified body which then allowed scavengers to damage or destroy it, defeating the whole purpose of mummification—to preserve the body intact.  Egypt was also subject to occasional flash flooding, which could not only carry the body away, it also reintroduced moisture and bacteria to the mummy.

So the Egyptians began thinking in terms of protection.  Obviously the body had to be interred someplace that would be safe from animals and the elements, but this presented its own difficulties.  A body placed inside a tomb without first being preserved would decay the same as one left out in the open.  Somehow they had to find a way to mummify the body before putting it into its tomb, but time was of the essence.  If the body was not dehydrated quickly enough, decomposition could begin.

One easy solution would have been to bury the body in a sand pit until it was mummified, then transfer the body to its permanent tomb.  But this still left the body unprotected during the sand burial, and when you are talking about the afterlife, you want to leave as little to chance as possible.  If you wanted to be absolutely certain that your body was preserved intact, then you wanted both a safe place for mummification and a safe place for interment.  Safe mummification meant drying the body out quickly, but without the benefit of the hot desert sands.

A natural mummy from El Museo de las Momias Guanajuato, Mexico (Photo by Tomas Castelazo)

A natural mummy from El Museo de las Momias Guanajuato, Mexico (Photo by Tomas Castelazo)

Sand burials made natural mummification possible—mummification that occurred entirely without extra efforts being made to preserve the body.  But sand burials were too unpredictable.  Maybe the body would be preserved for the ages, but probably not.  This necessitated a new innovation—burying people inside tombs cut into the limestone bedrock.  But even in a tomb, an unpreserved body would still decay, so with the advent of the Age of the Tomb Builders we also have the beginning of artificial mummification, the process of drying and preserving the body under “laboratory conditions.”

For this reason it can be said that if you had a mummy then you also wanted a tomb, and vice versa.  Having a mummy meant that you would also want the protection afforded by a sealed tomb, otherwise your mummy would be subject to the animals and elements.  But simply putting a body in a tomb did not prevent decomposition, so the body had to be mummified first.  The two were sort of a package deal.

So, how were mummies made?

 

Mummy Making 101

While they may not have been obsessed with death, the ancient Egyptians were obsessive record keepers.  They wrote down everything, from transactions between merchants to poems and love letters.  But two things are conspicuously missing from the written record:  how to build pyramids and how to make mummies.  Bob Brier suggests that mummy making might have been kept mum because it was a trade secret, but we are not entirely without clues.

Huy's mummy workshop

Huy's mummy workshop

One source of insight comes from the tomb of Huy, himself an embalmer.  As stated above, Egyptians believed the afterlife was sort of a better version of their mortal lives, and so they decorated their tombs with scenes from their daily lives, including both work and play.  Being an embalmer, Huy chose to illustrate his tomb with a scene from his mummy workshop.  Dr. Brier points out that while this scene does not show an actual mummification in progress, it does show some of the tools used, and from this we can get an idea of how Huy plied his trade.

Herodotus—Greek historian and early authority on mummification (Photo by Marsyas)

Herodotus—early authority on mummification (Photo by Marsyas)

Another source is the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century BC and travelled to Egypt around 454 BC.  Although Herodotus did not witness a mummification first hand, he does seem to have found a chatty embalmer who confided in him three different methods which conveniently correspond with upper, middle, and lower class patrons.  Since the account of an upper class mummification was obviously the most complete (no cutting corners), that was the description most useful to Dr. Brier.

Based on sources such of these, a generally accepted, albeit incomplete, description of the process of royal mummification arose.  The reader should bear in mind that this description is concerned mostly with the practical concerns of mummification—how to dry out a body, and fast.  Mummification was also a very sacred ritual that involved processes that were of a strictly spiritual nature.  For a more complete account, the reader is referred to Dr. Brier’s book, Egyptian Mummies: Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art.

Replicas of the sort of hooks used to remove the brain and clean the cranial cavity (Photo courtesy of The Science Museum (UK) Science and Society Picture Library)

Replicas of the sort of hooks used to remove the brain and clean the cranial cavity (Photo courtesy of The Science Museum (UK) Science and Society Picture Library)

The embalming took place inside a sacred tent called the ibu, or, “Place of Purification.”  The body would have first been washed with palm wine and then rinsed with water.  Next, the brain would have been removed.  The ancient Egyptians did not see the brain as a vital organ—thought and emotion were believed to take place in the heart, so the brain was simply removed.  Long hooks were inserted through the nostrils and into the skull, where it was originally believed they were used to tear away the brain a piece at a time.  As we will learn a little later, this was probably not exactly how the hooks were used.

Priests embalming a mummy

Egyptian priests used mixtures of palm wine and fragrent resins to cleanse and seal the body

Once the brain was removed, palm wine and resin were poured through the nostrils to rinse and purify the hollow skull.  This would have removed any remaining blood and brain matter, and the natural disinfecting properties of the wine and resin would have helped kill bacteria, further hampering decomposition.  As the wine evaporated the resin would gradually harden, effectively sealing the skull from within.  More resin would be added later.  Once the brain was removed, the embalmers would have then begun the removal of the internal organs.

Bronze embalming tools (Photo courtesy of The Science Museum (UK) Science and Society Picture Library)

Bronze embalming tools (Photo courtesy of The Science Museum (UK) Science and Society Picture Library)

Extraction of the internal organs was important because, being composed of very soft and moist tissues, they were prone to rapid decay.  Bear in mind that the goal of mummification was to preserve the body before decomposition set in, so the embalmers would have wanted to empty and purify the torso as soon and completely as possible.   A small incision would have been made on the left side of the body through which the organs were removed.

Herodotus speaks of the embalmers using a knife made of black stone, probably obsidian, to make this incision.  However, since copper and bronze cutting tools have been found with other embalming tools, it was assumed that the stone knife was probably used for ritual purposes.  But as we shall see, Mumab taught us that Herodotus was probably right about the stone knife being used to make the incision.

Weighing the heart against the feather of Ma’at—one of the trials of the afterlife (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Weighing the heart against the feather of Ma’at—one of the trials of the afterlife (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Like any modern surgeon, the priest responsible for removing the organs through this small incision would have had nimble hands.  The heart was not removed because it was thought to be the center of human thought and emotion, and would be needed to pass the trials of judgment and enter the afterlife.  Other than the heart, everything else came out.  Once the organs were removed, the liver, intestines, stomach, and lungs were separated and readied for preservation.

The organs would have first been washed with palm wine and the aromatic resins of frankincense and myrrh.  In addition to the preservative qualities of these resins, Drs. Brier and Wade discovered that the frankincense and myrrh helped mask the rather unpleasant odors of working with a dead body.  As devout as the embalmer priests may have been, they were only human, and temperatures inside the ibu tent would have soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.   Any relief from the smell would have been welcomed.

Canopic jars of Sitwerut, wife of Horkherty (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Canopic jars of Sitwerut, wife of Horkherty (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Once they were cleansed, the liver, intestines, stomach, and lungs were packed with natron into four special vessels called canopic jars.  Canopic jars could be made of anything from pottery and limestone to more precious materials such as alabaster or even gold.  There were specific jars for each of the four organs, and their look and religious function evolved over time.

 

During the Old Kingdom Period canopic jars were plain-featured with unadorned lids.  Old Kingdom canopic jars were rarely inscribed in any sort of way.  During the Middle Kingdom Period inscribed canopic jars were more common, and the stoppers were shaped like human heads, presumably the deceased.  By the Late Period the jars were much more ritualized, with lids shaped like the heads of the Four Sons of Horus, the gods responsible for the protection of their respective organs.

canopic jars chartWith the brain removed and the viscera packed into their canopic jars, the embalmers were now ready to begin the preparation of the body itself.  First the inside of the torso would be cleansed with palm wine and fragrant resins to flush out any remaining soft tissues and blood.  Then the inside of the body was stuffed with small sacks of natron to absorb moisture from within, and the body itself would have been covered in a mound of natron to pull moisture out.

Natron with a bowl of sawdust, also often used in mummification

Natron with a bowl of sawdust, also often used in mummification

Natron is a naturally occurring mixture of sodium chloride (salt), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and sodium carbonate decahydrate (ash soda).  Many of the rivers and lakes in Egypt’s delta had a high level of salinity, and when water from these sources evaporated they left deposits of natron on their banks.  One area had such an abundance of these salt lakes that it was named Wadi Natrun, the Valley of Natron.  Harvesting this valuable resource for the embalming industry would have undoubtedly been a lucrative business.

Bag of natron from Tutankhamun's embalming cache (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Bag of natron from Tutankhamun's embalming cache (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Natron is vital to mummification because it is the key to dehydrating the body fast enough to prevent decomposition.  Natron helps break down fats into oil and then absorbs these and other liquids from the body.  As the natron absorbed the bodily fluids it would harden into a crust which could then be removed.  Another chemical change that occurs with natron is that as it absorbs moisture it increases in alkalinity, which further helped with mummification by inhibiting the growth of bacteria.

Two of the unanswered questions about mummification, prior to Mumab, were A) how much natron did it take to mummify a human body, and B) how long did mummification take?  There were no real clues pertaining to the first question, but Herodotus contended that 70 days was the standard period for mummification.  After 40 days or so the sacks of natron would have been removed from the body cavity and then replaced with clean natron sacks, resin-soaked linen, aromatic herbs, and wood chips.

It was believed that after 40 days the body would have been finished drying.  The abdominal incision would have been sewn up, the skull stuffed with resin-soaked linen, and all other openings sealed.  Originally the organs would have been left in the canopic jars, but in later years the organs were removed, wrapped in resin-soaked linen, and sealed up inside the body

The body would have then been washed again with palm wine and anointed with resin and pleasant-smelling oils.  The body was now ready to be wrapped in linen, with resin applied to the bandaging to act as a glue and sealant.  The mummy might have had certain details and scriptures painted on it before being placed inside of one or more coffins and finally interred.

A fully wrapped and painted mummy, currently in the British Museum (Photo by Klafubra)

A fully wrapped and painted mummy, currently in the British Museum (Photo by Klafubra)

Opening of the mouth ceremony—preparing the body for the afterlife

Opening of the mouth ceremony—preparing the body for the afterlife

In all, the “70 Day Rule” for mummification could be broken down into 15 days for cleansing and purification, 40 days for dehydration in natron, and then 15 days for wrapping and final rites.  This 70-day cycle also coincided with the 70 days the star Sirius spent “dying” as it made its journey across the night sky into the grave of the horizon.  Sirius, the “Dog Star,” was associated with Anubis, the god of mummification and the afterlife.

So now we will jump forward 2,000 years to Baltimore, 1994, where two mummy detectives were about to tackle some of mummification’s unanswered questions.

 

Mumab

Ronn Wade and Bob Brier

Ronn Wade and Bob Brier

Sources such as Herodotus and tomb paintings, as well as the evidence of the mortuary tools themselves, gave a fairly good idea of how mummification was performed, but Egyptologists knew the picture was incomplete.  They knew, for example, that natron was the key to fast dehydration, but how much natron was required?  These were the types of questions that led Bob Brier to his epiphany—if he was really going to know how the ancients performed mummification, he would have to make one himself.  Dr. Brier decided to reverse engineer an ancient Egyptian mummy.

The potential benefits of doing an ancient Egyptian mummification under controlled conditions were huge.  Not only would it provide answers to questions like how much natron would be needed, it would allow Drs. Brier and Wade to test hypotheses such as whether or not an obsidian knife could have really been used to make the abdominal incision, or how effectively the brain could be removed by pulling it out with long hooks.

Dr. Tori Randall prepares a 550-year-old Peruvian child mummy for a CT scan for the San Diego Museum of Man. Mumab can serve as a point of comparison for actual ancient mummies (Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery)

Dr. Tori Randall prepares a 550-year-old Peruvian child mummy for a CT scan for the San Diego Museum of Man. Mumab can serve as a point of comparison for actual ancient mummies (Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery)

Another advantage of Mumab was that he could serve as a sort of benchmark for mummy studies.  Unlike actual ancient mummies, Mumab’s embalmers knew all of his pre- and post-mortem conditions—how he died, how he was mummified, and how his body looked and behaved during each phase of his transformation.  Mumab would be the case study against which other mummies could be compared.

For the mummy to be an ideal benchmark, the donor had to be as average and unremarkable as possible.  He or she (it ended up being a he) would have to be similar in height and build to an average Egyptian, and he would need to have died of natural causes.  No major surgeries, as these would have produced “forensic artifacts” that one would not see in an ancient mummy.  No major diseases either, as these would have caused potentially unpredictable side effects and results from the mummification process, limiting his use as a benchmark.

As for the mummification itself, Drs. Brier and Wade would have to strictly follow what they knew of the ancient process.  All of the embalming tools would be expertly made replicas of the same tools the ancients used.  This meant recreating details even when the exact function was unknown.  The embalming board, for example, was depicted with what Dr. Brier describes as “railroad tie-like” horizontally-running slats that would have elevated the body several inches above the board.  At the time, the reason for these slats was unknown, but they were faithfully reproduced.

Linen from Tutankhamun’s embalming cache

Linen from Tutankhamun’s embalming cache (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The ingredients would be, as much as possible, gathered from the same sources the ancient Egyptians would have used.  Four hundred pounds of natron were gathered from the Wadi Natrun.  Frankincense and myrrh were brought from Yemen, the same trade routes that supplied the ancient embalmers.  In some cases ingredients and materials had to be sought where available.  Palm wine, for instance, was acquired from Nigeria, and they had to go to Ireland to purchase 100 yards of pure, untreated linen.

 

 

The atmosphere and working conditions were also reproduced as accurately as possible.  For the embalming, Drs. Brier and Wade erected their own ibu tent inside a room at the University of Maryland Medical School.  The temperature inside the tent was kept at a constant 105 degrees Fahrenheit, with 22% humidity—the same conditions under which the ancient embalmers would have worked.  With the tools, ingredients, and working conditions reproduced as faithfully as possible, they were ready to begin.

So how exactly did this work? (National Geographic)

So how exactly did this work? (National Geographic)

One of the first things Drs. Brier and Wade learned was that a brain cannot be pulled out of the skull through the nostrils by long hooks.  Brains are pretty mushy, so it was sort of like trying to pull soft tofu through the neck of a wine bottle with a fondue fork.  They discovered that the hooks were probably used to scramble the brain into a liquid that could then be poured out.  The barbed shape allowed pieces of linen to be inserted and then pulled back out, so the hooks were a kind of multi-purpose cranial cleaning tool.

Obsidian scalpelsAnother thing Mumab taught us was that Herodotus was right about the stone knife.  Dr. Brier had enlisted a large team of specialists to make the tools he would need to assure they would be both authentic and of appropriate quality.  What he discovered in the ibu tent was that the obsidian knife worked considerably better than the copper and bronze knives.  In fact, obsidian is able to take an edge 1/6th the thickness of a modern scalpel, and is used by some surgeons today.  Dr. Brier reported that the “stone knife” used by the ancient embalmers cut more cleanly and neatly than surgical steel.

Ancient Egyptian embalming tableRegarding the embalming board, they learned the purpose of the “railroad tie-like” slats.  During the drying out phase, when the body is covered with natron, it is just as important that it lies on top of a bed of natron as well.  Gravity pulls the moisture in a dead body downward.  If a body is left lying on its back, the fluids will pool in the parts that touch the ground—the upper back, buttocks, and backs of the legs.  This is why dead bodies appear heavily bruised on their downward facing side.

For this reason, there had to be a good quantity of natron beneath the dehydrating body.  But if you lay a body on top of a pile of something the consistency of table salt for forty days, you find that another effect of gravity is displacement.  The natron will gradually conform to the shape of the body as the heavier parts push it outward and away.  This results in thinner layers of natron where you need it the most—the upper back, buttocks, and the backs of the legs.

Mumab on his mortuary board

Mumab on his mortuary board

The horizontal slats on the surface of the embalming board created furrows into which the natron could be packed, and these troughs held the natron in place throughout the entire drying process.  Parts of the body that did not lie flat, such as the neck and the small of the back, could be situated over the slats (with natron beneath them as well, of course), so that as the body settled the lower parts would still be nestled in a thick bed of natron.  So the embalming board was specifically designed to allow the back of the body to dehydrate evenly.

 

 

Once the body was packed in natron it was time to close up the tent and wait.  Dr. Brier decided on a 35-day drying period.  At the end of the 35 days the tent was reopened and the natron was removed from the body.  The first thing the researchers noted was that after 35 days in natron the mummy looks pretty much the way it will thousands of years later.  So it is not the passage of time that gives mummies their characteristic withered look, it is the actual dehydrating process itself.

Another thing Dr. Brier noticed was that Mumab weighed more than expected.  The body weighed 180 lbs at the beginning of the drying process, and after 35 days he only weighed 60 lbs.  That was a significant loss, but it was still too heavy for a fully desiccated body.  Mumab was not done yet.  But there were no signs of decomposition either, and the presence of moisture in the larger muscles meant that the body was still a little flexible.

Wrapping Mumab

Wrapping Mumab

Dr. Brier had first thought that since the body had not completely dehydrated in the 35 day period that the experiment had failed, but he wanted to be certain, so he decided to put the mummy back into the ibu tent for another three months.  Rather than simply repacking the body in natron, the team decided to do a preliminary wrapping, which is when Dr. Brier began to suspect that the goal of the 35 day drying period may not have been total dehydration after all.  The flexibility provided by the remaining moisture made wrapping the mummy much easier than it would have been if it was completely dried out.

When the Egyptian priests applied the linen wrapping they didn’t simply roll the body up like a cocoon, they wrapped the limbs individually and a lot of attention was paid to detail and thoroughness.  Completely dried out bodies are very brittle, and the sort of jostling required by wrapping the body would make damage very likely.  But after the 35 day period (or 40, by Herodotus’ reckoning) the body was dry enough that it could receive a preliminary wrapping without having to worry about decomposition taking place under the bandages, but pliable enough that the body would not be damaged during this process.

Pliability also meant that the body could be posed during the preliminary wrapping.  This was important for royal mummies because the positioning of the arms denoted social rank.  Once the mummy was completely dried out this would have been impossible.  The arms would have simply broken.

Ptolemaic Period mummy on display at the Louvre,Département des Antiquités égyptiennes. This sort of intricate wrapping would have required constant manipulation of the body, including the limbs. Could this be done with a fully dehydrated body? (Photo by Dada)

Ptolemaic Period mummy on display at the Louvre,Département des Antiquités égyptiennes. This sort of intricate wrapping would have required constant manipulation of the body, including the limbs. Could this be done with a fully dehydrated body? (Photo by Dada)

So Mumab taught us that the 35 (or 40) day drying period in natron was not intended to completely dry the body out.  When the mummy is drying it is important to have as much of the skin as possible in direct contact with natron.  This means that posing the mummy in its final position during the 35 day period would probably not have been possible as this would have meant that part of the arms and torso would not have been exposed to the drying agent.

Mumab wrapped

Mumab wrapped

Dr. Brier concluded that the 35 days in natron dehydrated the body just enough to stall decomposition until the total process was completed, but not so much that the body could not be posed and safely receive its preliminary wrapping.  When Mumab was finally taken out of the tent after the three month period, Dr. Brier’s conclusion was vindicated—the body now weighed about 38 lbs, so it was completely dehydrated, and there had been no decomposition.  The experiment was a success.

The final step was a complete set of CT scans of the mummy.  This was important for researchers who would come later to compare actual ancient mummies to Mumab.  The CT scans were a sort of road map of what a royal mummy could be expected to look like.  Also, one of Mumab’s feet was left unwrapped so that every couple of years a tissue sample could be taken to assure that all was well and there was still no decomposition.

Bob with Mumab (Courtesy of National Geographic)

Bob with Mumab (Courtesy of National Geographic)

Mumab filled a lot of the gaps in what we knew about ancient Egyptian mummification.  We now know how the brain was probably extracted—not piece by piece, but more like pouring gravy from a teapot.  We know that the sharpest tool in the embalmer’s kit was not made from copper or bronze, but from obsidian.  We know how the design of the embalming board assured even dehydration and prevented pockets of blood and fat from settling and putrefying.  And we know that the mummy was not removed from natron at 35-40 days because it was finished, but because it was ready for wrapping and posing.

Dr. Brier also learned how much natron it takes to mummify an average human being—400 lbs—which is a good thing, because that was all he had collected!

 

Mumab Today

After being stored at room temperature for sixteen years at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Mumab still shows no evidence of decay.  He made his West Coast debut on June 10, 2011, when he went on permanent loan to the San Diego Museum of Man Modern Day Mummy exhibition.  Although he takes center stage, he shares the spotlight with shrunken heads from Ecuador, a 1,800-year-old mummy from Denmark found in a bog with a noose around his neck, as well as other mummies from around the world.

The exhibition includes a lecture series covering subjects such as the role of MRI and CT scans in mummy forensics, funerary practices in American history, comparing Hollywood mummies to the real thing, and natural mummification in Southern California.  The exhibit also takes a look at the sort of difficulties mummy researchers might encounter while working in the field, such as what to do when a mummy cannot be moved due to technical, cultural, or ethical reasons.

Lemon Grove Girl and Infant—one of the ethical dilemmas mummy researchers face is what to do with stolen mummies (Photo by Superfem)

Lemon Grove Girl and Infant—one of the ethical dilemmas mummy researchers face is what to do with stolen mummies (Photo by Superfem)

One example of an ethical dilemma comes from the SDMoM’s own collection.  Two of the mummies on display, those of a young woman and a baby, come with a troubling provenance.  Thought to be around 500 years old, the mummies were discovered in a cave in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1966 by two teenagers who then smuggled them illegally across the border and stored them in their garage, where they were left to be rediscovered by new owners.  Naturally, the police were called but, once murder is ruled out, what does one do with stolen mummies?

In this case the mummies were given to the SDMoM by the government of Mexico, but not all situations are as open and shut.  What if the mummies had been purchased from a private collection before their history was uncovered?  Reputations and careers have been damaged by circumstances such as these, and museums typically end up losing both the money invested and the mummies themselves, all because somebody somewhere along the chain of custody did not follow protocol.

Non-invasive methods such as this CT Scan of a Peruvian mummy allow for better analysis of mummies with minimal risk of damage (Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery)

Non-invasive methods such as this CT Scan of a Peruvian mummy allow for better analysis of mummies with minimal risk of damage (Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery)

By lending his star power to the SDMoM, Mumab is helping bring attention to these matters.  The ethical issues of properly handling and studying mummies were also the focus of this year’s World Mummy Congress, which is probably part of the reason why the attendants were treated to a fieldtrip to the SDMoM exhibition.  Advances in noninvasive analysis, such as CT and MRI scans, help address some of these concerns, but science can only go so far.  Mummies were once living human beings, and not all of them donated their bodies to science.

Mumab will continue to play his role as ambassador between ancient mummies and modern researchers in his new home at the San Diego Museum of Man.  As the tools and methods of mummy studies continue to evolve, Mumab will undoubtedly have more to teach us in the future.  And he will have plenty of time to do so.  Thanks to the expert treatment of Drs. Brier and Wade, Mumab can expect to be around for at least a few thousand years more.

Mumab at his new home (Courtesy of the San Diego Museum of Man)

To see more images of Mumab at the San Diego Museum of Man, as well as learn more about the Modern Day Mummy exhibition, be sure to read Modern Day Mummy—The San Diego Museum of Man Takes You From the Lab to the Field here on Em Hotep!

 

Bonus Video

If you would like to watch a full-length lecture by Dr. Bob Brier discussing Mumab, the following video has been provided to the public by the University of Richmond.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2011.  All rights reserved.

The following photographs and images are used in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License and may be reused under the same provisions:  PredynasticBurial-ROM.png by Keith Schengili-Roberts; natural mummy from El Museo de las Momias Guanajuato, Mexico by Tomas Castelazo; AGMA_H~1.JPG by Marsyas; MiddleKingdomCanopicJar_RosicrucianEgyptianMuseum.png by Captmondo; painted Mummy_at_British_Museum by Klafubra; Egyptian_mummy_(Louvre).jpg by Dada.  The following photographs and images are used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 Generic License and may be reused under the same provisions:  WLANL_-_andrevanb_-_kist_uit_de_27-_31e_dynastie_(4).jpg by Andrevanb; Ginger predynastic natural mummy by Seriykotik1970; mummy CT scan from SDMoM by Official U.S. Navy Imagery; Lemon grove girl by Superfem; ct scan of peruvian mummy by Official U.S. Navy Imagery.  The following photographs and images are used in accordance with theCreative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.5 Generic License and may be reused under the same provisions:  Douamoutef.jpg ,  Dieu-Hapi.jpg ,  Amset.jpg , and  Kebehsenouf.jpg by Charly75.  The following images are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and are used in accordance with their usage policies (all rights reserved):  h2_dapt_4.jpg, hb_1988_437_2.jpg, and hb_09_184_220.jpg.  The image “embalming table.png” from the British Museum is copyrighted by the Trustees of the British Museum and is used in accordance with their usage policies.  The following photos, images, and video clips are using in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of copyright law and are reproduced for the sole purpose of promoting discussion and are not used in any way that would inhibit the sale or trade of the originals:  Photo “Bob Brier” courtesy of the University of Richmond, all rights reserved; Photo “Ronn Wade” courtesy of CNN/Turner Broadcasting, all rights reserved; hommedia.png courtesy of The Science Museum (UK) Science and Society Picture Library, all rights reserved; 10284168.jpg courtesy of The Science Museum (UK) Science and Society Picture Library, all rights reserved; “ x-ray of mummy brain removal” from the video “Egypt: Secrets of the Pharaohs”, courtesy of National Geographic, all rights reserved;  “ Bob with Mumab” from the video “Egypt: Secrets of the Pharaohs”, courtesy of National Geographic, all rights reserved; “ronbob.jpg”, “Mumab on his mortuary board”, “wrapping Mumab”, “Mumab wrapped” courtesy of Cartage.org; video clip “embalming a mummy” from the video “Royal Mummy”, courtesy of National Geographic, all rights reserved; video clip “gathering ingredients for Mumab” from the video “Egypt: Secrets of the Pharaohs” courtesy of National Geographic, all rights reserved; video clip “dehydrating the body with natron” from the video “Egypt: Secrets of the Pharaohs” courtesy of National Geographic, all rights reserved.  The following photos and images are in the public domain:  “Huy’s workshop”; MALER_~1.JPG; BD_Hunefer_cropped_1.jpg by Jon Bodsworth; Sawdust_and_Natron_salt_for_mummification_39a798e19218ea60f039.jpg; Opening_of_the_mouth_ceremony.jpg.

 

]]> http://emhotep.net/2011/06/28/egypt-in-the-news/mumab-a-modern-day-ancient-egyptian-mummy-and-what-he-has-taught-us-so-far/feed/ 8 Exhibit — Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science http://emhotep.net/2010/08/06/mummies/exhibit-lost-egypt-ancient-secrets-modern-science/ http://emhotep.net/2010/08/06/mummies/exhibit-lost-egypt-ancient-secrets-modern-science/#comments Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:26:43 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=4464 Lost Egypt:  Ancient Secrets, Modern Science is a guided interactive exhibit where visitors will be challenged to perform archaeological work such as reconstructing a 3D puzzle of a broken artifact and using computer simulations of the tools archaeologists use to discover and analyze sites and explore a recreation of an Egyptian tomb.

Lost Egypt:  Ancient Secrets, Modern Science

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History

1600 Gendy St.

Fort Worth, TX 76107

October 24, 2010 through January 2, 2011

Admission: Adults $14.00, children (2-12) and seniors (60+) $10.00, museum members no charge.

  

Lost Egypt:  Ancient Secrets, Modern Science focuses on showing young people (although there is plenty for curious or career-oriented adults) the diversity of Egyptological work, ranging from archaeologists and engineers to technicians and forensics experts.  The goal of the exhibit is to spark interest and awareness by showing “how archaeologists use modern science and technology to uncover and understand the ancient civilization of Egypt.”

In addition to simulations and recreations, Lost Egypt will feature life-sized X-Rays of human and animal mummies, facial reconstructions, and a life-sized rapid prototype “unwrapping” of a mummy using CT scans.  There is also a rapid prototype tour of the skull of Djedhor’s mummy.

In addition to the forensics and reconstructions there will be plenty of authentic ancient Egyptian artifacts, including an actual human mummy and a mummified cat and ibis.  Visitors will be treated to artifacts on loan from The Brooklyn Museum and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.  The exhibit also includes photographic displays of fieldwork in progress and video interviews with experts such as Dr. Sarah Parcak, Dr. Salima Ikram, and Dr. Mark Lehner.

Lost Egypt:  Ancient Secrets, Modern Science was produced by the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) at Columbus.  For more information about the exhibit see Fort Worth Museum:  Unearth the Mysteries of Egypt in LOST EGYPT.  To download an exhibit walk-through from COSI, click this link.

If you plan to visit this exhibit, please share your experience and impressions with Em Hotep’s readers in the Comments section below!

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

]]> http://emhotep.net/2010/08/06/mummies/exhibit-lost-egypt-ancient-secrets-modern-science/feed/ 0 The Terrible Table Three Tut Toe Typo Tallies Another Textual Tragedy! http://emhotep.net/2010/04/11/egypt-in-the-news/the-terrible-table-three-tut-toe-typo-tallies-another-textual-tragedy/ http://emhotep.net/2010/04/11/egypt-in-the-news/the-terrible-table-three-tut-toe-typo-tallies-another-textual-tragedy/#comments Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:47:52 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=4001 Two weeks ago I posted my article about the JAMA* report’s analysis of King Tut’s foot problems and how they might have potentially led to his downfall (no pun intended).  One of the elements of my argument was that Tutankhamun was missing a toe bone in his right foot.  But he wasn’t (and probably still isn’t).

I had based my contention on a typo in one of the tables in the JAMA report, a typo that is contradicted in numerous places throughout the rest of the article, a series of dots which I somehow failed to connect.  As a result, Gentle Reader Monica gently but concisely took me to task for my mistake in the Comments section of the article.

Now a writer for a much more high-profile (at least for now) outfit than Em Hotep has made the same mistake.  So shamey-shamey on us.  But how did the same mistake make it past the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association?

 

It seemed like a pretty good thesis at the time:  the combination of a painful foot condition in Tutankhamun’s left foot, a right foot weakened by a missing toe bone, and a brash young prince given to occasional risky behavior led to a traumatic fall and an untimely death. 

It’s still a pretty good thesis, for the most part.  Missing toe bone or not, the pain from Tutankhamun’s left foot was sharp enough to cause him to overcorrect on his right foot so much that the arch collapsed.  Add this to riding a chariot while hunting or onto a battlefield and you have a good case for suiregicide (break it down… sui…regi…cide).

But not catching the mistake was just sloppy on my behalf.  Under the heading of Malformations, Table 3 lists “oligodactyly (hypophalangism) right,” with regard to Tut’s tootsies.  But the text states that the hypophalangism (missing toe bone –ism) was in the second toe of the left foot (JAMA, p. 645), and the text under Figure 5. Analysis of the Pathology in the Feet of Tutankhamun repeatedly states the right foot shows “no pathological findings” (p. 644).

But while I may be in err, I am also in good company.  Writing for Discovery News on April 7, 2010, Rosella Lorenzi writes about Tutankhamun’s sandals, which analysis reveals were specially crafted to account for his clubbed foot.  The story comes with a very cool slideshow, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, you oughta.  Unfortunately, Ms. Lorenzi repeats the Table Three Tut Toe Typo:  “Indeed, the second toe in King Tut’s right foot lacked the middle bone, making it shorter, while the left foot was clubbed, rotating internally at the ankle” (Discovery News:  “King Tut Word Orthopedic Sandals”).

The mistake was pointed out, as Egyptological mistakes nearly always are, in the missives of EEF News, an Egyptology forum mailing list moderated by A. K. Eyma, where it evoked a response from Lorenzi herself:  “Confusion around King Tut’s hypophalangism wasn’t generated by my article in the first place.”  She goes on to explain the source of the mistake (JAMA Table 3) and to assure her readers that a correction is forthcoming.

Rosella Lorenzi and I both made a mistake, and that is on us.  But the mistake also made it past the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and to my knowledge no correction or clarification has been presented.  And lest it sound as if I am being defensive here by nitpicking the JAMA article, others have pointed out much more serious issues with the research covered in the JAMA article, including the methodology and conclusions of the study (See:  “The Blogroll Roundup: Critiquing the JAMA Article” here on Em Hotep).  One would think these issues would have prompted some editorial remarks from JAMA.

The introduction of groundbreaking work to the professional and lay public always engenders a variety of responses and interpretations.  The research presented in the JAMA article has certainly accomplished that, and the dialogue has been a delight to follow and participate in.  But differing interpretations should be based on a study’s conclusions, not its presentation.  As we have seen, a mistake at the source easily snowballs into a chain of mistakes and retractions.

 

*Note:  “JAMA” refers to Journal of the American Medical Association:  “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family.” (Hawass, Zahi, Yehia Z. Gad, Somaia Ismail, et al. 2010; 303(7):638-647)

 

See Also

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

]]> http://emhotep.net/2010/04/11/egypt-in-the-news/the-terrible-table-three-tut-toe-typo-tallies-another-textual-tragedy/feed/ 2 Mummy Scanners http://emhotep.net/2010/04/05/egypt-in-the-news/mummy-scanners/ http://emhotep.net/2010/04/05/egypt-in-the-news/mummy-scanners/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 10:59:29 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=3990 No, it’s not a new David Cronenberg movie about mummies with exploding heads, it’s an innovative use for those annoying scanners that airport employees use to ogle your naked bod.   

The scanners, technically called terahertz scanners, but more derisively dubbed “digital strip searches,” peek under your clothing but can’t penetrate your body, or any contraband you might have strapped to it. 

 

But terahertz scanners have other properties that have caught the attention of Dr. Frank Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project.

 

X-Rays perform two tasks really well:  See through things, and kill them.  The first comes in pretty handy, but the second is a real downer.  The occasional bursts you get at the dentist’s office stand a very remote chance of causing problems, but ultimately it’s a numbers game.  It’s not that you don’t get enough radiation to cause damage when you go in for that root canal, it’s more a matter of not being x-rayed often enough to do any serious harm. 

But when you are racking up the rays as quickly as frequent flyer miles, those missing electrons start to add up.  In a perfect world, airports should be able to protect you from terrorists without slowly mutating you on your way to business class.  Enter the terahertz scanner. 

According to Popular Mechanics,

Terahertz radiation is a band that lies between microwaves and infrared, with a short wavelength that gives it better resolution than microwave imaging. Crucially, it also carries much less energy than X-rays.  (“Efficient, Cancer-Free Scanner Could Mean Ixnay on the X-Ray”)

That means that airport technicians can look at you naked with a clean conscious—it may be degrading and humiliating, but it isn’t lethal. 

But scientists have discovered that terahertz rays have another useful feature—two, actually.  First, they penetrate past mummy wrappings and deeper into their desiccated flesh than your own well-hydrated body.  Second, they do so without destroying that fragile ancient DNA we have been reading so much about lately.

So does it work? 

Frank Ruhli offered up a mummified fish and a spare hand he had lying around, and the scanners passed with flying colors, just none that you can see with the naked eye.  The technology has its limitations, and is not really a replacement for X-rays, but as with frequent flyers, the less often you use the big guns, the better.

For the full article, check out The Local:  “Scientists use ‘naked scanners’ to probe mummies.”

Another related article:  The National:  The mummy’s secrets revealed

  

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

]]> http://emhotep.net/2010/04/05/egypt-in-the-news/mummy-scanners/feed/ 2 The Blogroll Roundup: Critiquing the JAMA Article http://emhotep.net/2010/03/31/egypt-in-the-news/the-blogroll-roundup-critiquing-the-jama-article/ http://emhotep.net/2010/03/31/egypt-in-the-news/the-blogroll-roundup-critiquing-the-jama-article/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:13:06 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=3965 So much for the evil god Set keeping his mouth shut—people just seem to insist on questioning authority.  The JAMA article is jammed with answers, but queries continue.  Assembled here for your pleasure and edification are the best examples of critical questioning culled from the Egyptological blogosphere.    

Tangled roots, the passed-over prince, aging them bones, lack of control, and Kate Phizackerley’s Quest for Accuracy.

 

Mark Rose, the online editor for the Archaeological Institute of America and co-writer (with Heather Pringle) of Archaeology Magazine’s blog, Beyond Stone and Bone, was one of the first to look a bit askance at the media coverage of the new analysis of Tutankhamun.  “I suspect they are overdoing it a bit,” he said with regard to their characterization of the Boy King as a frail young man (“Tut: Disease and DNA News”).

Mark was also fast out of the gate to call attention to the age problem with the mummified skeleton from KV55 that was identified by the JAMA article as Akhenaten.  Initial analysis of the mummy based on dental and skeletal analysis suggested a time-of-death in the early 20’s, whereas Akhenaten is believed to have lived into his 30’s. 

In making the attribution of Akhenaten to KV55, the JAMA report simply says:

The mummy in KV55 was previously thought to be in his 20s when he died.  However, our new computed tomography investigation revealed that he lived to be much older.  (JAMA, Table 1, footnote b, p. 640).

In “Time for the Great Pyramid”, Mr. Rose states that he is working on a piece about the results of the JAMA study, set to run in the May/June issue of Archaeology Magazine.  He hopes to get some answers regarding questions he (and we) has about the DNA analysis and CT scan/tomography.

Mark was also kind enough to offer in the Comments section to take his readers’ questions to Dr. Carsten Pusch when he interviews him.  In particular, he stated that he has been following Kate Phizackerley’s articles (below) very closely and will present some of her questions to Pusch. 

Incidentally, I have passed on some of your questions, Gentle Readers, as well as a few of my own.  Mark’s offer in effect places us just one handshake away from one of the primaries of the JAMA article.  Behold the power of the Internet!

 

Kate Phizackerley, of News from the Valley of the Kings, began her own contribution practically before the ink on the JAMA report was dry.  Beginning with the question of how accurately geneticists can generalize from the data, given the incest issue, Kate went on to pen the first published scholarly critique of the study’s conclusions.

Kate’s work has become the nerve center of the critical analysis of the JAMA study on the Egyptological blogosphere.  Much of it has already been linked from Em Hotep, but for the sake of this compendium I have assembled all of her relevant articles to date:

 

Mummies expert Dylan Bickerstaffe has also referenced Kate’s work on the blog section of his website, Exploring Ancient Lands.  In “HAVE THE DNA TESTS PROVED AKHENATEN WAS TUTANKHAMUN’S FATHER? Or have they told us something else?” Dylan raises a brow over the methodology of the study as it was detailed in JAMA.  He is especially concerned over why the study was not conducted blind, as is typically done to prevent the researchers’ expectations from biasing their conclusions. 

Dylan also questions why the control group was so small, and why mummies from other periods were not included to help monitor accuracy.  As he puts it, “Thus if Tutankhamun turns out to be descended from a Ptolemaic mummy, you know you have a problem!”  And then there is the matter of why KV21A and KV21B were in the study rather than the control group.

 

Speaking of inclusions and exclusions, Tim Reid of The Egyptians wonders why the mummy of a young boy from KV35 was not included in the study at all.  In “The Forgotten Boy,” Tim points out that there are good reasons to suspect that the mummy could be that of Prince Webensenu, a son of Amenhotep II.  The article details some of the adventures and misadventures of the occupants of KV35, and includes some informed speculation about the identity of Smenkhkare, a name that continues to haunt the JAMA study in various and sundry ways.

 

And while not a blog, Egyptian Dreams is an Egyptology forum with very knowledgeable moderators and participants.  For a number of excellent threads on the JAMA study check out the Evidence from Amarna section.  Some of the threads you will want to explore include:

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

]]> http://emhotep.net/2010/03/31/egypt-in-the-news/the-blogroll-roundup-critiquing-the-jama-article/feed/ 0 King Tut’s Feet Fatale: Did Frail Feet Fell the Famous Pharaoh? http://emhotep.net/2010/03/28/egypt-in-the-news/king-tut%e2%80%99s-feet-fatale-did-frail-feet-fell-the-famous-pharaoh/ http://emhotep.net/2010/03/28/egypt-in-the-news/king-tut%e2%80%99s-feet-fatale-did-frail-feet-fell-the-famous-pharaoh/#comments Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:07:58 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=3936 Was King Tut a warrior king or “one sick kid”?  Even as the Family of Tutankhamun Project was publishing its findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association that the Boy King was a frail young man who needed a cane to walk, Egyptologist W. Raymond Johnson was publishing his evidence that Tut was an active young man who rode chariots into battle.

So which is the true Tut?  What if both versions are accurate?  Could this perfect storm of physical challenges and adventurous behavior have led Tutankhamun to a heroic but early grave?

 

When Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 he was surprised by the number of canes that had been interred with the young pharaoh.  Finding a walking stick in a royal tomb was not unusual by itself.  According to Dr. Emily Teeter of the Oriental Institute, walking sticks were “primarily decorative, and every well-dressed Egyptian man carried a cane — just like a man in the 1940s with a pocket square” (Source:  Los Angeles Times: King Tut’s mundane death).

Tutankhamun leaning onto a walking stick

Tutankhamun leaning onto a walking stick

But Tut had 130 of them, many of which show signs of use.  Tutankhamun is sometimes depicted using a cane, and there are images of him seated while participating in activities such as hunting, where one would expect to see him standing.  These, plus the abundance of canes provided for his use in the afterlife, have always hinted at some sort of foot problem, but the extent of his mobility issues has always been a matter for speculation (JAMA, p. 645).

The recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (“Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family.” Hawass, Zahi, Yehia Z. Gad, Somaia Ismail, et al, JAMA. 2010; 303(7):638-647) summarizing the two-year forensic study on Tutankhamun and other Eighteenth Dynasty royals has shed light on this question.  As part of the on-going Family of Tutankhamun Project, the study sought to identify certain unnamed mummies who were thought to be members of Tutankhamun’s bloodline, along with their pathological profiles, with special attention going to the Boy King.

The JAMA article paints a picture of a young man with a variety of foot problems, the cumulative effect of which would have caused him considerable pain and difficulty in getting around.  Taken individually his foot maladies are not too bad, but for poor Tut, they formed a perfect storm. 

 

Freiberg-Kohler’s Disease

Some of Tutankhamun’s problems were more readily observable than others.  He suffered from a mild clubfoot on his left side, along with mild scoliosis, which would have given him some problems but would have been fairly manageable in an otherwise healthy young man. Both of these conditions were common in the other mummies of the study.  But Tut had other problems with his left foot.

With the aid of tomographic imaging, the researchers detected a bone condition called Freiberg-Kohler’s disease in Tutankhamun’s left foot.  Freiberg-Kohler’s is a bone disease, but its catalyst is actually a circulatory condition.  It begins when blood flow to the end of one (or more) of the metatarsals becomes compromised.  The metatarsals are the long bones of the feet that connect the highest part of the arch to the toes.

Usually the second and/or third metatarsals are affected, and the condition manifests on the end that points toward the toes.  In a healthy metatarsal, the end of the bone is rounded and rests against cartilage that serves as a shock absorber between the metatarsal and the proximal phalange, the adjacent toe bone.   

But as the blood flow to the end of the metatarsal is cut off, the bone material begins to die, a process called bone necrosis, or osteonecrosis.  Living bone is spongy and flexible, but dead bone is brittle and more susceptible to breakage and collapse.  As the bone at the end of the metatarsal dies, it begins to crack and split.

As more of the bone dies, the end of the metatarsal begins to collapse.  The round surface begins to dimple inward and what would be normal pressure from usage becomes an unending series of minor traumas.  As more bone dies, the crown of the metatarsal continues to crush inward as the edges are forced outward, forming a trumpet shape.

With continued wear and tear the edges of the metatarsal head wear down, flattening the end of the bone.  By this point the cartilage between the metatarsal and the toe bone has become disconnected.  The cartilage and chips of bone become loose bodies that irritate and damage the surrounding tissue, and the already-damaged metatarsal may begin to rub directly against the toe bone.

As the living part of the bone attempts to heal and compensate for the dead part, the metatarsal develops areas of unusual thickness and density.  This causes problems because the foot is a pretty complex mechanism with a lot of moving parts that depend on each other having specific shapes and sizes.  When one or more of these parts change, the whole machine suffers.

The deformed metatarsal puts even more stress on the surrounding tissue.  Muscle and connective tissue become inflamed, fluid begins to build up and exert pressure, and loose cartilage and bone fragments may become absorbed, leaving sensitive areas completely unprotected. 

If caught early, Freiberg-Kohler’s disease can usually be corrected with physical therapy.  So long as it does not proceed to the latter stage even untreated Freiberg-Kohler’s seems to clear up on its own, as very few adults ever present with the condition.  Although not an ideal form of therapy, most sufferers simply favor the other foot, giving the bad one time to heal before too much damage is done.  For Tutankhamun, however, this strategy didn’t work so well.

 

A Perfect Storm of Podialogical and Political Problems

In Tutankhamun’ case, both the second and third metatarsals of his left foot were affected by Freiberg-Kohler’s, and the analysis showed that he was still suffering from serious complications at the time of his death. His club-footedness may or may not have predisposed him for Freiberg-Kohler’s, although it is certainly not a prerequisite for the condition.  But causative or not, his already compromised foot didn’t help matters.

The combination of these problems resulted in an accumulation of defects in Tut’s left foot that would have caused sharp pain when he placed any weight on it.  The tomographic images showed that there was marked soft tissue damage along with bone necrosis and deformity, especially in the second metatarsal.  Out of sheer reflex, Tutankhamun would have avoided putting weight on his left foot.  But our unfortunate pharaoh had problems in the other foot as well.

Tutankhamun suffered from hypophalangism in his right foot, which means he was missing toe bones.  This can be challenging under the best of circumstances because it results in an unnatural distribution of stress throughout the foot.  By shifting his weight from his painful left foot onto his fragile right foot, Tut was literally stacking problem upon problem upon problem.

As mentioned above, Freiberg-Kohler’s is treatable with physical therapy, but in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt this would have probably been no more sophisticated than walking with assistance and avoiding standing as much as possible.  The combination of dysfunction in both feet would have made taking things easy highly advisable.  But as a haughty young king, a living god, Tutankhamun would probably have been loath to take even these minimal precautions. Pharaohs did not show weakness.

Tutankhamun seated while bird hunting

Tutankhamun seated while bird hunting

Indeed, images of Tutankhamun seated while hunting suggest a young man struggling against his challenges while appearing as nonchalant as possible.  Other images show Tut participating in similar activities without such restraint.  One might interpret this as the king having good days and bad days, but the condition of his mummy’s feet suggest he probably didn’t have many good days but chose to exert himself anyway.

The analysis of Tutankhamun’s mummy revealed that he was flatfooted in his right foot, which makes perfect sense if he was regularly placing extra weight on it.  Tut’s right foot wasn’t even suited to bear its normal share of weight, so the added burden was simply too much on the arch.  But even if Tutankhamun had wanted to lead a more reserved lifestyle, he may have had no choice but to flex.

Consider his political situation for a moment.  He came to the throne at a young age which raised concerns about his competency from the beginning.  It had fallen upon him to reverse the unpopular policies of his father, Akhenaten, which undoubtedly exerted a constant pressure for Tut to prove himself—changing his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun, for instance.   He probably felt a need to assert at least a symbolic independence from his ambitious advisor, Ay, who many believe was really calling the shots.

Tut as a marauding sphinx (Photo courtesy of ThutmoseIII)

Tut as a marauding sphinx (Photo courtesy of ThutmoseIII)

In this atmosphere Tut may have, in a combination of youthful indiscretion and a very real need to minimize his weaknesses, pushed himself to dangerous limits.  The evidence published in the JAMA report shows a young man with many physical challenges. 

But some of the iconography seems to show a robust young king sowing his royal wild oats.  Which is the real Tut?  Could he have been both, and could this perfect storm of hindrances and determination have played a role in his death?

 

One Sick Kid, Warrior King, or Both?

Freiberg-Kohler’s disease undoubtedly caused Tutankhamun a good deal of pain and mobility issues, and while its underlying causes are unknown, its manifest effects were not good.  “Necrosis is always bad,” advises Dr. Carsten Pusch, one of the co-authors of the JAMA report, “ because it means you have dying organic matter inside your body” (Source:  National Geographic Daily News:  “King Tut Mysteries Solved: Was Disabled, Malarial, and Inbred”).  But it would not have directly caused Tut’s death.

The bone necrosis caused by Freiberg-Kohler’s is aseptic, which means that by itself it does not result in infection, which is the real threat of dead matter in the body (see Kinderradiologie-online:  “Kohler’s Disease II, Bilateral Freiberg-Kohler Disease”).  Dr. Albert Zink, another of the JAMA authors, stated emphatically that it was not a fatal condition by any stretch (Source:  University of Tubingen:  Tutankhamun’s parents identified). 

So as painful and malformed as Tutankhamun’s left foot may have been at the time of his death, there was nothing about the condition itself that was life-threatening.  But overall, the JAMA article reports that King Tut was indeed, as Emily Teeter summarized, “one sick kid” (Source: Physorg:  “Tut’s ills won’t kill fascination, historians say”). 

So this returns us to the question, What if Tut pushed through his physical challenges, possibly a bit too far?  In two articles published pretty much simultaneously with the JAMA report, one in Archaeology and the other in KMT (citations below), Dr. W. Raymond Johnson, director of the Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey, describes evidence of Tutankhamun living rather dangerously. 

A relief of Tutankhamun at Luxor Temple (Photo by Crucifixion)

A relief of Tutankhamun at Luxor Temple (Photo by Crucifixion)

Dr. Johnson has spent the last twenty years transcribing narrative imagery from the walls of Luxor Temple and from talatat-style blocks recovered from the area, many of which deal with Tutankhamun and his deeds.  The descriptions portray Tut as “much more active than was thought, and [he] may have led military campaigns against the Syrians and Nubians before he died” (Source:  Archaeology:  “Warrior Tut”).

Dr. Johnson’s work with the battle narratives of King Tut have brought to light scenes depicting the young king riding a chariot in an assault on a Syrian-style citadel, participating in battles with Nubians and Asiatics, and otherwise behaving in ways a frail young king ought not to act. Charioteering on a battlefield is tricky business.  Whether actually mixing it up in battle or just making an appearance to rally the troops, Tutankhamun would have been encumbered with armor and weapons and performing athletics for which he was not well suited.

Dr. W. Raymond Johnson thinks that images such as this, taken from a chest found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, are accurate depictions of an active young pharaoh

Dr. W. Raymond Johnson thinks that images such as this, taken from a chest found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, are accurate depictions of an active young pharaoh

Something to keep in mind is that during Tutankhamun’s day there really were no minor wounds.  Any cut which broke the skin could result in an infection, and there were no antibiotics.  While it is true that Tutankhamun was buried with a fully stocked pharmacy (see the JAMA article appendix), ancient medicine was more about management than cure.  They could reduce pain, lower fevers, and had some relatively effective local antiseptics, but trauma and infections were either survived or not.

One of the top theories regarding the cause of King Tut’s death points to a vicious leg injury he sustained in the days just before he died.  The wound, incidentally, was a compound fracture of his left thigh, the same side as his clubfoot and necrotic bones.  The broken thigh ripped through muscle and skin, opening a gash that would have resulted in a really nasty infection and almost certain death, which seems to be supported by the forensic evidence.

Did Tut eschew his walking sticks for throwing sticks, only to learn his limits the hard way?  Whether indulging in the popular pastime of hunting on the Giza Plateau, a terrain fraught with hazards for man and horse alike, or gallivanting about battlefields, Tutankhamun would have encountered many opportunities to take a bad fall.

Replicas of throwing sticks found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, which would have been used for hunting (Photo by Dr. Günter Bechly)

Replicas of throwing sticks found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, which would have been used for hunting (Photo by Dr. Günter Bechly)

It is easy to imagine a brash young pharaoh handing his cane to a servant as he climbed aboard his chariot, insisting on taking the reins himself.  Tut was surrounded by decorated military leaders such as Ay and Horemheb, both of whom would eventually take turns at the throne.  Perhaps Tut was cognizant of their ambitions and wanted to show that he, too, could lead an army, just as he is depicted doing at Luxor Temple.  Dr. Johnson raises a similar question:

The recent analysis of Tutankhamun’s mummy which indicates traumatic injury to his leg—possibly the result of a chariot accident—that appears to have led to infection and premature death gives one pause.  Could Tutankhamun’s tragic accident have occurred during a military campaign?  (Source: Kmt:  “Tutankhamun-Period Battle Narratives at Luxor.”  Vol. 20,  no. 4, pp. 20-33:Winter 2009-10.)

Dr. Johnson’s question is all the more plausible in light of the even more recent analysis of Tutankhamun’s feet.   The conclusions in the JAMA report show that if Tut had participated in dangerous activities such as charioteering he would have been extremely vulnerable to the type of accident that seems to have felled him.

  

The heart craves certitude, but science speaks in probabilities.  Simply put, we can outline likely scenarios, but we will never know what killed King Tut.  He may have died from an infected wound received in an attempt to prove himself at war or sport.  Then again, he may have fallen from weakness brought on by a lethal case of malaria, or when a duplicitous courtier whacked him in the back of the head.  Maybe, as some still suggest, the broken leg occurred with Howard Carter’s rough handling of the mummy.

Tut as a marauding sphinx (Photo courtesy of ThutmoseIII)Dr. Johnson closes both of his articles with the observation that we may never know what killed Tutankhamun, at least not from the narratives themselves, because it would be impolitic to document the accidental death of a pharaoh, a living god.  That would count double if the living god’s death was the result of a frail young man acting like a badass. 

Then again, given his challenges, maybe he really was a badass.

 

  

See Also

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

 

Photo “Tut with cane” modified from “Anuk” which is in the public domain due to expired copyright.  Photo “Metatarsals” modified from “footx” courtesy of Jlcruse and is used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.  Photo “TombofTut-ench-Amun” adapted from Fischfang und Fischkult im Alten Ägypten, by Dietrich Sahrhage, is in the public domain due to expired copyright.  Photo “Kingtut2” (both left and right) courtesy of ThutmoseIII and is used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.  Photo “Tut-tuxure 407” by Crucifixion is in the public domain.  Photo “Ägyptischer Maler um 1355 v. Chr. 001” is in the public domain.  Photo “Tut bumerangs” by Dr. Günter Bechly and is used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
]]> http://emhotep.net/2010/03/28/egypt-in-the-news/king-tut%e2%80%99s-feet-fatale-did-frail-feet-fell-the-famous-pharaoh/feed/ 4 The Mummies Gallery http://emhotep.net/2010/03/23/egypt-in-the-news/the-mummies-gallery/ http://emhotep.net/2010/03/23/egypt-in-the-news/the-mummies-gallery/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:30:14 +0000 Shemsu Sesen http://emhotep.net/?p=3877 Meet the mummies of the Family of Tutankhamun Project!  If you are looking for a mummy-by-mummy summary of the recent JAMA article, then you are in luck! 

In The Mummies Gallery we will take a look at each of the mummies in both the study and control groups and pull together the familial and pathological data for easy referencing.

 

 

Before we meet the mummies, I should point out that the purpose of this article is only toprovide an easily readable summary of the data in the Journal of the American Medical Association report (“Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family.” Hawass, Zahi, Yehia Z. Gad, Somaia Ismail, et al, JAMA. 2010;303(7):638-647).  In this article I will not be critiquing or challenging the work, but neither do I wish to communicate that I am in 100% agreement.  For the current article, I am but the humble messenger.

The JAMA report is understandably heavy with medical jargon which I have attempted to present in non-technical terms.  However, I am not a physician, so when in doubt, double check my work.  If you find mistakes, please by all means report them in the Comments section!  You will be doing us all a favor!

As stated above, I will not be taking positions in this article on the data presented, but that does not mean I will not do so in future articles.  You, however, are encouraged to provide as much exegesis as you feel compelled to share.  Where you disagree with the data, speak your mind.  The whole purpose of The Mummies Gallery is to promote intelligent discussion by putting the JAMA report into layperson’s terms as much as possible.

I should also point out that I will not be delving too deeply into the genetic analyses in this current work.  Again, I reserve the right to do so in the coming weeks, but there is enough data to wade through by just sticking to the JAMA report’s conclusions.  Methodology shall be taken up, if at all, elsewhere.

Finally, I want to point out that there is a lot of repetition because I wanted each mummy to serve as a stand-alone entry.  In other words, I want the reader to be able to zip straight to a specific mummy and take in all the data in a glance without having to search through the full article to find the definition of a particular term.  However, even in the repetition there are subtle differences from mummy to mummy, so just because a paragraph starts off the same way it did for the last mummy, don’t assume the entire paragraph was cut-and-pasted!

So, without further adieu, I present the who’s-who of the chosen few of the Eighteenth Dynasty!

 

 

Tutankhamun (Study Group)

Tutankhamun

 

Identification and Kinship

Tut's HeadTutankhamun’s identity was known prior to the study.

Genetic fingerprinting on Tutankhamun was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of Tutankhamun’s genetic fingerprints showed: 

  • KV55 (Akhenaten) is 99.99999981% likely to be Tutankhamun’s father.
  • KV35YL is 99.99999997% likely to be Tutankhamun’s mother.
  • Tutankhamun is 99.97992885% likely to be the father of Fetus 1
  • Tutankhamun is 99.99999299% likely to be the father of Fetus 2

Cells in human males have one Y chromosome and one X chromosome.  The Y chromosome, present only in men, is passed from father to son and is used to trace paternal genetic lines.  The Y chromosomal DNA from Tutankhamun was used to identify the mummy from KV55 (Akhenaten) as his father, and Amenhotep III as his paternal grandfather.

Tutankhamun’s mother, KV35YL, is possibly either Nebetah or Beketaten, two of Amenhotep III’s daughters not known to have married their father, making them possible wives of Akhenaten.  Nefertiti and Kiya have been excluded as candidates for Tutankhamun’s mother.  Whoever KV35YL proves to be, the JAMA report states that she is a full sister of Akhenaten, making her a daughter of Amenhotep III.  Neither Nefertiti nor Kiya are believed to be daughters of Amenhotep III.

Blood type is a categorization of blood based on the structure of red blood cells.  Blood tests have been conducted on both Tutankhamun and KV55 (Akhenaten) and it was determined that both were in the A2 human blood group.  Blood categorization is further subdivided by analysis of a pair of genetic markers called antigens.  There are 46 different antigens, and both Tutankhamun and Akhenaten had the M and N antigens.  Thus, sharing the A2 blood type with the MN antigen pair suggests a close familial relationship between KV55 and Tutankhamun.  (See Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. London: Red River Books, 2002.  P. 84.)

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Cleft and highly arched palate, mild left clubfoot, crowded teeth, recessed (short) lower jaw, mild scoliosis, slightly hunched back.
  • Tut’s flat-shaped skull (brachycephalism) is attributed to a family trait rather than defect or disease.
  • Missing bone segments in left foot.
  • A diagnosis of gynecomastia—female-like breasts—or Marfan syndrome, a genetic condition which can also manifest in enlarged breasts, was not possible due to the condition of Tutankhamun’s mummy, which lacks the frontal part of the chest.  However, the normal development of Tutankhamun’s penis tends to cast doubt on any condition that would elevate estrogen (female hormones) or lessen testosterone (male hormones).

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Freiberg-Kohler’s disease in the left foot, resulting in bone deterioration and collapse at the ends of the metatarsals—the long bones of the foot.   This would have been a painful condition which would have probably required the young pharaoh to use a cane.  Although the condition results in bone death, it is aseptic, which means it would not normally result in an infection. 
  • The combination of club footedness, missing bone segments, and Freiberg-Kohler’s disease in the left foot, along with flat-footedness in the right foot, would have resulted in serious mobility issues for Tutankhamun.
  • Malaria tropica, multiple infections.  The presence of multiple strains of malaria tropica in Tutankhamun is open to interpretation.  He may have survived one or more full-blown infections, or it may have never progressed to a symptomatic stage.  It may have played a role in his death, or he may have never even known he was infected.
  • Compound fracture to the left thigh.  Of all the probable causes of Tutankhamun’s death, this seems the most likely.  It occurred shortly before his death, as evidenced by the lack of healing, and was probably not postmortem due to the presence of embalming fluids in the fracture.  It would have resulted in the bone tearing through the muscle and skin, and would have caused a severe infection.

 

 

Yuya (Study Group)

Yuya

 

Identification and Kinship

Mummy mask of YuyaYuya’s identity was known prior to the study.

Genetic fingerprinting on Yuya was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of both Yuya’s and Thuya’s genetic fingerprints showed they are 99.99999929% likely to be the parents of KV35EL (Tiye)

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Yuya’s head is slightly longer than normal (Dolichocephaly), which is attributed to a family trait rather than defect or disease. 
  • Yuya has fingers which are long and slender in relation to the width of his palm (Arachnodactyly), which may be a result of the embalming process or a natural variant rather than a disorder.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Non-infective dental abscesses.
  • Like Tutankhamun, Yuya shows evidence of multiple infections with malaria tropica which may or may not have ever developed into full-blown malaria.  The fact that Yuya lived to an advanced age suggests that he either acquired the disease late in life, survived an earlier bout/bouts, or may have developed partial immunity from environmental exposure (see JAMA, p. 646).
  • Incisional hernia.  As the name suggests, this is a hernia where the tissues of the abdomen, and sometimes even abdominal organs, push through the muscle layer where an incision has occurred.  The result is a painful bulge at the spot under the skin where the tissue breaks through.  An incisional hernia is usually a postoperative complication resulting from abdominal surgery.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility that Yuya had undergone some form of medical procedure, the presence of incisional hernias in seven of the sixteen mummies in the study seems suspicious.  It is possible that what is being called an incisional hernia is a postmortem result of the embalming process.

 

 

Thuya (Study Group)

Thuya

  

Identification and Kinship

Mummy mask of ThuyaThuya’s identity was known prior to the study.

Genetic fingerprinting on Thuya was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of both Thuya’s and Yuya’s genetic fingerprints showed they are 99.99999929% likely to be the parents of KV35EL (Tiye)

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Severe scoliosis with hunched back, recessed (short) lower jaw.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Non-infective dental abscesses, hardening of the arteries.
  • Thuya has fingers which are long and slender in relation to the width of her palm (Arachnodactyly), which may be a result of the embalming process or a natural variant rather than a disorder.
  • Malaria tropica infection which may or may not have ever developed into full-blown malaria.  The fact that Thuya lived to an advanced age suggests that she either acquired the disease late in life, survived an earlier bout, or may have developed partial immunity from environmental exposure (see JAMA, p. 646).
  • Incisional hernia.  As the name suggests, this is a hernia where the tissues of the abdomen, and sometimes even abdominal organs, push through the muscle layer where an incision has occurred.  The result is a painful bulge at the spot under the skin where the tissue breaks through.  An incisional hernia is usually a postoperative complication resulting from abdominal surgery.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility that Thuya had undergone some form of medical procedure, the presence of incisional hernias in seven of the sixteen mummies in the study seems suspicious.  It is possible that what is being called an incisional hernia is a postmortem result of the embalming process.

 

 

KV55—Akhenaten (Study Group)

KV55-Akhenaten

 

Identification and Kinship

KV55-AkhenatenThe idenification of Akhenaten was a key element of the Family of Tutankhamun Project because he ties the two previous generations to the two following generations.

Genetic fingerprinting on KV55 was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of KV55’s genetic fingerprints showed:

  • KV55 is 99.99999981% likely to be the father of Tutankhamun.
  • Amenhotep III is 99.99999999% likely to be KV55’s father.
  • Amenhotep III and KV35EL (Tiye) are 99.99999964% to be KV55’s parents.

Cells in human males have one Y chromosome and one X chromosome.  The Y chromosome, present only in men, is passed from father to son and is used to trace paternal genetic lines.  The Y chromosomal DNA from the KV55 mummy was used to identify it as the son of Amenhotep III and the father of Tutankhamun.

Blood type is a categorization of blood based on the structure of red blood cells.  Blood tests have been conducted on both KV55 (Akhenaten) and Tutankhamun and it was determined that both were in the A2 human blood group.  Blood categorization is further subdivided by analysis of a pair of genetic markers called antigens.  There are 46 different antigens, and both Tutankhamun and Akhenaten had the M and N antigens.  Thus, sharing the A2 blood type with the MN antigen pair suggests a close familial relationship between KV55 and Tutankhamun.  (See Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. London: Red River Books, 2002.  P. 84.)

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Cleft and highly arched palate, scoliosis, recessed (short) lower jaw, crowded teeth, facial asymmetry.
  • No proof was found of gynecomastia, Marfan syndrome, or any other congenital disorder which would have resulted in Akhenaten having a feminine body type as depicted in Amarna-style reliefs and statuary.  These depictions seem to be defined by artistic, religious, and political conventions rather than Akhenaten’s actual appearance.
  • A diagnosis of gynecomastia—female-like breasts—was not possible due to lack of observable tissue.  Akhenaten’s mummy is actually a mummified skeleton.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Abnormal bone growth in the sinus cavity, degenerative bone loss and abnormal bone growth in the femurs.

 

 

Amenhotep III (Study Group)

Amenhotep III

 

Identification and Kinship

Amenhotep IIIAmenhotep III’s identity was known prior to the study.

Genetic fingerprinting on Amenhotep III was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.”  The GenoProof analysis of Amenhotep III’s genetic fingerprints showed:

  • Amenhotep III is 99.99999999% likely to be KV55’s (Akhenaten’s) father.
  • Amenhotep III and KV35EL (Tiye) are 99.99999964% to be KV55’s (Akhenaten’s) parents.
  • KV55 (Akhenaten) is 99.99999981% likely to be Tutankhamun’s father, making Tutankhamun Amenhotep III’s grandson.

Cells in human males have one Y chromosome and one X chromosome.  The Y chromosome, present only in men, is passed from father to son and is used to trace paternal genetic lines.  The Y chromosomal DNA from Amenhotep III was used to identify the mummy from KV55 (Akhenaten) as his son, and Tutankhamun as his grandson.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Recessed (short) lower jaw, highly arched palate, clubfoot.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Non-infective dental abscesses, progressive bone degeneration, erosions in the inner structure of the right side of the skull, degeneration of spinal disks.

 

 

KV35YL (Study Group)

KV35YL

 

Identification and Kinship

Genetic fingerprinting on KV35YL was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of KV35YL’s genetic fingerprints showed KV35YL is 99.99999997% likely to be Tutankhamun’s mother

KV35YL is not considered to be Nefertiti because the genetic fingerprinting shows that she is a full sister of Akhenaten (KV55), making her a daughter of Amenhotep III.  Since Nefertiti is not listed anywhere as a daughter of Amenhotep III, this seems to rule out KV35YL being Nefertiti.  Likewise, Kiya is not attested as a daughter of Amenhotep III, so she can be marked off the list.  Of Amenhotep III’s daughters, neither Nebetah nor Beketaten are known to have married their father, making them possible wives of Akhenaten, and thus, viable candidates for KV35YL.

It should be noted, however, that GenoProof data supporting the likelihood that KV35YL and KV55 were full siblings was not provided in the JAMA report.  It is not clear if this is a limitation of the test itself, or if the case for siblinghood between KV35YL and KV55 (Akhenaten) is not as strong as other relationships proposed in the JAMA article.  If the latter, then there may be room for some doubt about the positions in the above paragraph, and KV35YL may yet be identified as Nefertiti.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Scoliosis, recessed (short) lower jaw, crowded teeth, facial asymmetry.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Trauma (likely fatal) to the face and cranium.

 

  

KV35EL—Tiye (Study Group)

KV35EL-Tiye

 

Identification and Kinship

QueenTiy01-AltesMuseum-BerlinThe identification of Queen Tiye was one of the major accomplishments of the project.

Genetic fingerprinting on KV35EL was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of KV35EL’s genetic fingerprints showed:

  • Yuya and Thuya are 99.99999929% likely to be the parents of KV35EL (Tiye)
  • Amenhotep III and KV35EL (Tiye) are 99.99999964% to be KV55’s (Akhenaten’s) parents.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Mild scoliosis, misshapen ears.
  • Tiye has fingers which are long and slender in relation to the width of her palm (Arachnodactyly), which may be a result of the embalming process or a natural variant rather than a disorder.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Thyroid dysfunction\goiter.
  • Incisional hernia.  As the name suggests, this is a hernia where the tissues of the abdomen, and sometimes even abdominal organs, push through the muscle layer where an incision has occurred.  The result is a painful bulge at the spot under the skin where the tissue breaks through.  An incisional hernia is usually a postoperative complication resulting from abdominal surgery.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility that Tiye had undergone some form of medical procedure, the presence of incisional hernias in seven of the sixteen mummies in the study seems suspicious.  It is possible that what is being called an incisional hernia is a postmortem result of the embalming process.

 

 

Fetus 1 (Study Group)

KV62 Fetus 1

 

Identification and Kinship

Genetic fingerprinting on Fetus 1 was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of Fetus 1’s genetic fingerprints showed Tutankhamun is 99.97992885% likely to be the father of Fetus 1

Complete genetic data sets for Fetus 1 could not be obtained after repeated attempts.  Part of the ongoing work of the project involves more rigorous examination of mitochondrial (maternal) DNA, which could provide more data about Fetus 1.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • No detectable congenital disorders.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Stillbirth.

 

 

Fetus 2 (Study Group)

KV62 Fetus 2

 

Identification and Kinship

Genetic fingerprinting on Fetus 2 was analyzed by a software package called GenoProof which calculates the likelihood of paternity and/or kinship.  A probability of more than 99.73% is regarded as “practically proven.” 

The GenoProof analysis of Fetus 2’s genetic fingerprints showed Tutankhamun is 99.99999299% likely to be the father of Fetus 2

Complete genetic data sets for Fetus 2 could not be obtained after repeated attempts.  Part of the ongoing work of the project involves more rigorous examination of mitochondrial (maternal) DNA, which could provide more data about Fetus 2.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Mild scoliosis

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Stillbirth.

 

 

KV21A (Study Group)

KV21A

 

Identification and Kinship

Complete genetic data sets for KV21A could not be obtained after repeated attempts.  Part of the ongoing work of the project involves more rigorous examination of mitochondrial (maternal) DNA, which could provide more data about KV21A.

KV21A could possibly be Ankhesenamun, but will require further analysis to be sure.  The possibility that she is Ankhesenamun was certainly not ruled out.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Scoliosis, clubfeet.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • None diagnosed.

 

 

KV21B (Study Group)

KV21B

 

Identification and Kinship

Complete genetic data sets for KV21B could not be obtained after repeated attempts.  Part of the ongoing work of the project involves more rigorous examination of mitochondrial (maternal) DNA, which could provide more data about KV21B.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Scoliosis, clubfeet.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • None diagnosed.

 

 

CCG61065 (Control Group)

Mummy CCG61065

 

Identification and Kinship

Identifying the mummies of the control group was not a stated goal of the current phase of the study, and genetic information on the control group was not provided in the JAMA article.  Mummy CCG61065, previously thought to be that of Thutmose I, remains unidentified.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Scoliosis, hunched back, misaligned pelvis.
  • CCG61065’s head is slightly longer than normal (Dolichocephaly), which is attributed to a family trait rather than defect or disease. 

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Malaria tropica.  It seems unlikely that CCG61065 was suffering from full-blown malaria at the time of his death, as he died of an arrow wound, a fairly good sign that he died in battle.  Someone suffering from malaria tropica, the most severe form of malaria, is not going to have much fight in him.
  • Incisional hernia.  As the name suggests, this is a hernia where the tissues of the abdomen, and sometimes even abdominal organs, push through the muscle layer where an incision has occurred.  The result is a painful bulge at the spot under the skin where the tissue breaks through.  An incisional hernia is usually a postoperative complication resulting from abdominal surgery.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility that CCG61065 had undergone some form of medical procedure, the presence of incisional hernias in seven of the sixteen mummies in the study seems suspicious.  It is possible that what is being called an incisional hernia is a postmortem result of the embalming process.
  • Traumatic arrow wound, presumed to be fatal, to the chest.

 

 

Thutmose II (Control Group)

Thutmose II

 

Identification and Kinship

Thutmose IIThutmose II’s identity was known prior to the study.

Although in the control group, Thutmose II was not included in the genetic control group.

 

  

Congenital Disorders

  • Scoliosis, hunched back, hollow feet (high arches), recessed (short) lower jaw, crowded teeth, misshapen ears.
  • Thutmose II’s head is slightly longer than normal (Dolichocephaly), which is attributed to a family trait rather than defect or disease. 

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Calcified heart valves
  • Incisional hernia.  As the name suggests, this is a hernia where the tissues of the abdomen, and sometimes even abdominal organs, push through the muscle layer where an incision has occurred.  The result is a painful bulge at the spot under the skin where the tissue breaks through.  An incisional hernia is usually a postoperative complication resulting from abdominal surgery.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility that Thutmose II had undergone some form of medical procedure, the presence of incisional hernias in seven of the sixteen mummies in the study seems suspicious.  It is possible that what is being called an incisional hernia is a postmortem result of the embalming process.

 

 

Ahmose-Nefertari (Control Group)

Ahmose-Nefertari

 

Identification and Kinship

Ahmose-NefertariAhmose-Nefertari’s identity was known prior to the study.

Although in the control group, Ahmose-Nefertari was not included in the morphological control group

 

  

Congenital Disorders

  • None reported in the JAMA article.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • None reported in the JAMA article.

 

 

Hatshepsut (Control Group)

Hatshepsut

 

Identification and Kinship

HatshepsutHatshepsut’s identity was known prior to the study.

 

 

  

  

Congenital Disorders

  • Recessed (short) lower jaw

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Slipped disk (L5-S1).
  • Infective dental abscesses.  Hatshepsut’s abscesses were serious enough to have caused fatal blood poisoning (septicemia).  This may have caused or contributed to her death.  In the very least, her final days were not pleasant. 
  • Probable metastatic bone cancer of the left hip/pelvis.  As with her dental abscesses, Hatshepsut’s cancer was serious enough to have caused or contributed to her death.

 

 

Sitra-In (Control Group)

Sitra-In

 

Identification and Kinship

Sitra-In’s identity was known prior to the study.

 

Congenital Disorders

  • Scoliosis, hunched back, misshapen ears.

 

Acquired Disorders

  • Incisional hernia.  As the name suggests, this is a hernia where the tissues of the abdomen, and sometimes even abdominal organs, push through the muscle layer where an incision has occurred.  The result is a painful bulge at the spot under the skin where the tissue breaks through.  An incisional hernia is usually a postoperative complication resulting from abdominal surgery.  While it is not outside the realm of possibility that Sitra-In had undergone some form of medical procedure, the presence of incisional hernias in seven of the sixteen mummies in the study seems suspicious.  It is possible that what is being called an incisional hernia is a postmortem result of the embalming process.

 

 

See Also 

 

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Photos “Tutankhamun” from The Griffith Institute (Howard Carter Archive), “tuyu2” from Davis, Theodore M., Maspero Gaston, and Carter Howard. The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou. London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1907, pl III, “TutChildMummy1” and “TutChildMummy2” from Reeves, Nicholas. The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, the Tomb, the Royal Treasure. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, “Yuyacolor”, and “Hatshepsut7” courtesy of The Theban Mummy Project.  Photos “Amenhotep iii”, “amenhotep iv akhanaten”, “KV35YL”, “kv35el”, “ccg61065 thutmose I”, “thutmoses ii”, and  “Ahmose-Nefertari” courtesy of the University of Chicago’s Electronic Open Stacks copy of Catalogue General Antiquites Egyptiennes du Musee du Caire: The Royal Mummies, by G. Elliot Smith (Cairo, 1912).  Photos “41_tut”, “Mummy mask of Yuya”, “32_tuya”, “34_akhenaten_small”, and “amenhotep III” by Jon Bodsworth are copyright free.  Photos “QueenTiy01-AltesMuseum-Berlin” by Keith Schengili-Roberts and “Hatshepsut_1” by Postdlf are used in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License.  Photo “Ahmesz_Nefertari2005” courtesy of Leoboudv and is used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
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