Using CT scanner, scientists gain new view of 2,000-year-old mummy
A "digital dissection" using sophisticated CT scanning technology yesterday changed the way scientists viewed a 2,000-year-old mummy of an Egyptian child.
They now suspect that the youngster was a boy about 4 or 5 years old who was missing a right front tooth and was around 2-1/2 feet tall. He appeared to be developing normally and likely died of an acute cause, perhaps an infection.
Before the scan was conducted, experts at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine had thought the child was 8 or 9 years old and had an unusually large head, suggesting that a genetic condition might have contributed to his death.
The mummy had been X-rayed in the 1940s and in 1986, but a hands-on examination of such a precious artifact is unthinkable in scientific circles.
[Story includes CT scan photo and audio comments by Dr. Jeffrey Towers, chief of musculoskeletal radiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, about the CT scan and what he learned.]
Read entire article at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
They now suspect that the youngster was a boy about 4 or 5 years old who was missing a right front tooth and was around 2-1/2 feet tall. He appeared to be developing normally and likely died of an acute cause, perhaps an infection.
Before the scan was conducted, experts at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine had thought the child was 8 or 9 years old and had an unusually large head, suggesting that a genetic condition might have contributed to his death.
The mummy had been X-rayed in the 1940s and in 1986, but a hands-on examination of such a precious artifact is unthinkable in scientific circles.
[Story includes CT scan photo and audio comments by Dr. Jeffrey Towers, chief of musculoskeletal radiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, about the CT scan and what he learned.]