The results obtained with this protocol provided important anthropologic and paleopathologic information that would have been impossible to obtain by other noninvasive techniques. Moreover, this method has great potential for studies of conservation, anthropology, and paleopathology of other Egyptian and ancient human remains. Multidisciplinary cooperation among anthropologists, paleopathologists, Egyptologists, and radiologists is essential.
Our multidisciplinary cooperative study produced a model of the face of an individual who lived nearly 3,000 years ago, which would not previously have been possible unless we unwrapped, destroyed, and altered the conservation of the bandages and the mummy.
Philippe Charlier and a multidisciplinary team explain how they confirmed an embalmed head to be that of the French king Henry IV using a combination of anthropological, paleopathological, radiological, forensic, and genetic techniques
A whole-body examination was performed with multidetector computed tomography (CT) of a completely wrapped Egyptian mummy from the collection at the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy. The mummy dates from the Eighteenth Dynasty. Although embalmment of the deceased man should have included evisceration in accordance with his social rank, no canopic jars containing internal organs had been found at the discovery of his tomb, and at CT, all the organs were found to have desiccated inside the body. Numerous calcified stones that were incidentally identified in the gallbladder had attenuation characteristics indicative of a predominant bile pigment content. This case demonstrates the superior capabilities of multidetector CT for the noninvasive study of embalmed bodies. The intrinsic capacity of CT for depicting the density of materials allowed not only the identification of the gallbladder stones but also their characterization.
The “Mummy in the Dress” belongs to the Egyptian Collection Giovanni Marro of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the University of Turin. It was recovered in Gebelein during an excavation campaign carried out at the beginning at the XX century by the Missione Archeologica Italiana under the leadership of its founder, E. Schiaparelli, Director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin. The mummy wore a pleated dress over its bandages. The body lies in a natural position, resting on its left side, on the remains of a wooden coffin. A team of anthropologists, chemists, Egyptologists and radiologists is studying the mummy with the aim of determining sex, age, embalming techniques and date of deposition. CT scans and 3D reconstruction of the mummy were carried out to enable the researchers to ascertain its sex and age, to verify what clothes enshrouded the body, to investigate its state of preservation and to learn more about the ancient techniques employed to assemble the wooden coffin.
The “three sisters” is a particular group of mummies from the Drovetti collection of the Egyptian Museum in Turin. They were purchased in 1824 by King Carlo Felice of Savoy for the new Museum. The mummies come from the area of Tebe in Upper Egypt. Their names are Tapeni (CGT 13002–Cat. 2215), Tamiu (CGT 13003–Cat. 2218), and Renpetnefert (CGT 13007–Cat.2231). They were evaluated the same day with multidetector CT (GE Light Speed Qx/I). In all three cases whole body CT helical acquisition with thin slices (2.5 mm thickness, 1.25 mm reconstruction interval) followed by multiplanar and 3D reconstructions were performed. Stature, anthropometric measurements, sex, and approximate age, were estimated. Also embalming techniques, condition of the skeleton and of the soft tissues, and the presence of foreign objects were analyzed. The similarities and differences of embalming methods were also evaluated. To our knowledge, there are no other reports of CT studies on mummies belonging to the same family. We believe these results are of particular interest for archaeology and computed imaging technology.
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