The British Museum and BMI Shirley Oak Hospital recently
joined forces to help unlock the secrets of six ancient mummies ranging in age
from 800 to over 2,000 years old. The mummies, part of The British Museum’s
permanent collection, underwent CT scans to help peel back their bandages and
reveal the secrets of their lives, including their diets, how they lived,
worked and ultimately, died.
The radiology team at BMI Shirley Oaks Hospital, led by
Radiology Manager Kathy Gunn, offered the use of their equipment to help
further the research of The British Museum. The mummies, which were originally
from Egypt, Peru and Sudan, were preserved both naturally and by artificial
human means. Radiographers and experts from the
museum spent the entire day at the hospital carefully unboxing, scanning and
analysing their finds to unravel the mummy’s secrets.
On the day the biggest surprises came from
a female mummy, who was thought to be headless. The CT scan revealed that the
head was attached but tucked forward into her upper chest. Dr Daniel Antoine Curator of Physical Anthropology at The
British Museum commented: “This opportunity
provided to us by BMI Shirley Oaks Hospital gives The British Museum an
unparalleled opportunity to source scientific data that will help us shed light
on the physical anthropology, family relationships, life expectancy, nutrition,
health, disease and the causes of death of these mummies. The surprises on the
day, such as the revelation that our headless mummy has a head, allowed us to
answer a lot of questions. But, the revelations and surprises will continue as
we now take these images away and continue our research, and further
assessments, that will dramatically improve our understanding about how these
people lived and died."
Recent advances and improvements in
medical imaging technology and diagnostic capabilities in modern medicine allow
scientists to look at ancient artefacts in a whole new light. For many years,
the only way to extract data from Egyptian mummies was to unwrap them, a destructive
and irreversible process. However, recent advances in the field of non-invasive
imaging techniques, such as CT scans, have made it possible to look inside a
mummy without disturbing the wrappings in any way. Using data from the scans
and after the radiographer’s manipulation, the British Museum’s team were
instantly able to virtually unwrap their mummy’s and embark on a 3D journey
within the body, seeing every feature and secret hidden beneath the bandages
and skin.
Radiology Manager Kathy Gunn said, “We were delighted when The British
Museum accepted our offer to help them with their on-going research. On our
patients, we would use this CT imaging technology to help us detect vascular lesions, infections, tumours,
calcifications, haemorrhage, bone/organs trauma, genetic anomalies and nerve
pain conditions. But, the technology we have at the hospital is so advanced
that it can also be used to help scientists learn about the lives of people who
lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago.”
Private hospital news : 9 July 2012
