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1st appeared
09
May 2000
Looking Beneath the Mummy’s Shroud The patient scheduled for radiologist Henry Goldberg on Saturday will certainly be his oldest ever. Goldberg, director of the director of the Radiology Learning Center and an advisor and contributor to the Exploratorium’s Revealing Bodies exhibit, will conduct a CT scan of an ancient Egyptian mummy at the outpatient radiology imaging center on May 13 at 11 a.m. It’s all part of a webcast series in conjunction with the Revealing Bodies exhibit. The webcast will be shown to a live audience at the Exploratorium and online viewers. The mummy, loaned by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, is mysterious and has never been examined with sophisticated imaging tools. All that’s known about the mummy is the information that came with it when it was donated to the museum in 1895 -- it's believed to be an 18th dynasty (Middle Kingdom) mummy of a priestess named Hatason from the Temple of Amon-Ra at Sycopolis. That would date the mummy back some 3,500 years. The mummy will undergo a CT scan, in which the donut-shaped machine will rotate around the mummy while sending out low doses of X-rays. A powerful computer detects the results, collecting images "slice by slice" to show cross sections of the body. Slices will be combined to make three-dimensional images of the head and torso, letting viewers look at the flesh, tissues and bone. Experts can also examine different slides of the mummy to investigate any curiosities that arise. Things they’ll be looking for are: Was the bone behind the nose broken to pull out the brains? (Removing the brains before mummification was a common practice.) Were the brains removed and replaced with something else (like straw or resin)? Are there any amulets or jewelry in the body or wrappings of the mummy? Is the mummy a female? Are the bones and teeth in good condition or do they show signs of disease or decay? Did the priestess suffer from any trauma before death? When the organs were removed for mummification, was the heart mummified and returned to the body? Where was the incision? These are just some of the things that might be discovered during the webcast. While Goldberg will guide viewers through the CT scan and helps assess the condition of the mummy before and after death, Fine Arts Museum conservator Lesley Bone will discuss her preparations of the mummy for imaging and what she knows of its history. At points throughout the CT scan and program, email questions will be taken from the Web audience. From the Exploratorium, Stanford graduate student Gilbert Barrego will discuss his research with mummies, including his imaging study of a mummy from the Stanford Museum. He will explain how ancient funeral directors prepared a body for burial and explore the attitudes that Egyptians had about the body and why it was so important to carefully preserve it for eternity. Other presenters will show how to make your own animal mummy, using a fish and some baking soda. Exploratorium biologist Karen Kalumuck will explain what happens to the cells and tissues of the body during mummification and will demonstrate how to determine a body's surface area by wrapping a person like a mummy. Links: The Exploratorium’s Revealing Bodies "Revealing Bodies" – UCSF’s Inside Job UCSF Radiology Learning Center
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